
Class 4^^^ 



iSl^ -^ ' 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED ON THE 

FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS PASTORATE 
IN RIND GE, N. H., 

November 14, 1861, 

By rev. a. W. BURNHAM, D. D. 

WITH 

ADDRESSES, ic. ON THE SAME OCCASION. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY AND NICHOLS. 

1862. 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED ON THE 

FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS PASTORATE 
IN RIND GE, N. H., 

November 14, 1861, 



i^ 



By REV. A. W. BURNHAM, D. D 



ADDRESSES. &c. ON THE SAME OCCASION. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY AND NICHOLS 
1862. 



^ 



vv 



Cambridge: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 

Printers to the University. 



OEDER OF EXEECISES IN THE CHUECH. 



I. VOLUNTARY. 
"strike the cymbal." 

II. INVOCATION AND READING THE SCRIPTURES. 

BY KEY. SAMUEL LEE. 

III. SINGING PSALM CXXXVI. 

" Give to our God immortal praise." 

READ BY REV. A. P. MARVIN. 

IV. PRAYER. 
BY REV. ASA RAND. 

V. SINGING PSALM LXXVm. 
" Let children hear the mighty deeds." 

READ BY THE PASTOR. 

VL DISCOURSE. 

BY REV. A. W. BURNHAM, D. D., THE PASTOR. 

Vn. PRAYER. 

BY^ REV. Z. S. BARSTOW, D. D. 

Vm. Sn^GING ORIGINAL HYMN. 

BT SAMUEL BUBNHAM. READ BY REV. W. L. GAYLOKD. 

IX. DOXOLOGY. 

"praise god from whom all BLESSINGS FLOW." 

X. BENEDICTION. 

BY REV. Z. S. BARSTOW, D. D. 



DISCOURSE. 



" Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." 
1 Sam. vil. 12. 

At the time referred to in this passage, the Israel- 
ites, under the leadership of Samuel, were at war 
with their constant enemies, the Philistines. God 
had interposed and given them a victory, and when 
in pursuit of their foes they had reached a certain 
spot, where probably they felt sure of ultimate suc- 
cess, " Samuel took a stone, and set it tip hctiveen ^lizpeh 
and Shen, and called the name of it Ehenezer, saying, 
Hitherto hath the Lord helped iisV This was done in 
grateful acknowledgment that it was by the help 
of God that they had been thus far sustained and 
prospered in their enterprise, and to transmit to 
future generations a memorial of that Divine aid 
by which such a victory had been achieved. The 
Lord had helped them, and given success up to that 
time. 

So all serious persons, as they pass on from one 
stage of life's journey to another, find occasion to 
adopt the language of the devout leader of God's 
ancient people. 



And thus families and communities, as they ex- 
perience the aid and interpositions of God in their 
behalf, not unfrequentlj have reason to exclaim, 
with a full heart, " Hitherto hath the Lord helped lis." 

And plainly this language cannot be used by 
any persons with greater propriety than by the 
Christian Pastor, and those who, for a series of 
years, have shared with him the duties and trials 
and responsibilities incident to the important rela- 
tion existing between them. 

And this is the interesting position occupied to- 
day by the First Congregational Church and So- 
ciety in this place and their Pastor. Forty years 
ago . to-day this relation was constituted in this 
ancient house, according to the simple, but solemn 
forms of Congregational usage. Then I gave my- 
self, as I think sincerely, to this people to be their 
servant in .the Pastoral office for Jesus' sake ; to 
identify myself with them in all that should affect 
their welfare. And the labors and trials, the days 
of prosperity and of adversity, which have been ex- 
perienced during these years, have served only to 
deepen this feeling in the Pastor's mind, that he 
and his people are one, — having but one great in- 
terest to secure, one cause to maintain, one object 
to accomplish, by their mutual labors. 

In reviewing, then, as it is deemed proper on this 
interesting occasion, as briefly as practicable, our 
own history during the period here referred to, I 
doubt not this beloved Church and Society are 
ready to unite with the Pastor in a devout ac- 



knowledgment of the good hand of our God which 
has been upon us. " Hitherto hath the Lord helped u^r 

I. He hath helped us in all that concerns our 
temporal welfare. 

And here should be noted the continuance of our 
life. In yiew of our various liabilities in this re- 
spect, the sicknesses and deaths, in the midst of 
which we have lived, the multitude who have, in 
the period now contemplated, fallen around us, we 
must gratefully acknowledge that it is because 
" having obtained help of God, we continue to this 
day." 

While we have suffered less than some other vil- 
lages from sweeping epidemics, yet probably the 
yearly bills of mortality may have contained as large 
a proportion of the poj^ulation as other towns in this 
vicinity. If I have kept an accurate record, 793 
persons, of whom 174 were members of the Church, 
have died in this town during these forty years ; a 
small fraction less than twenty on an average in 
each year. Thus nearly twice as many as usually 
enter this house on the Sabbath have, one after 
another, joined the great congregation of the dead, 
and sleep with their fathers in the grave. Death 
has thus invaded perhaps every family ; in some 
instances scattering the members, in others, extin- 
guishing the family, not leaving one to transmit 
the name to another generation. Scenes of sick- 
ness and sorrow have been always passing before 
us, and the doings of death in the midst of us ; and 



8 



yet zve have been preserved. God has healed our 
sicknesses, renewed our strength, reheved us in dis- 
tress, comforted us in sorrow, had compassion on 
our infirmities, borne with our sins ; and, while we 
review the past, Ave are bound to ascribe the con- 
tinuance of life to help obtained of God. 

And, by Divine aid, a reasonable degree of pros- 
perity has attended the various occupations of the 
jDCople. We inhabit a rough and uneven portion of 
the country, are subjected to the inconveniences 
of a hard, stony soil, with no water-power for large 
operations, and every man is obliged to earn, if not 
to eat, his " bread in the sweat of his face " ; yet 
the blessing of God has attended the labors of the 
husbandman and the mechanic, the tradesman and 
every other employment in such measure, that the 
people have lived and thrived, and the necessaries 
and comforts of life are abundantly enjoyed. At 
least, all things needful for the body are found 
in every house. True, many of us are obliged to 
work hard, to practise the wholesome virtues of 
diligence, economy, and self-denial ; but " hitherto 
hath the Lord helped us," and hath given us " day 
by day our daily bread," and no small progress has 
been made in all that pertains to the real conven- 
ience and comfort of life, and great increase in 
some branches of business. For example, I think 
that forty years ago there were only two, and these 
old-fashioned, saw-mills in town ; but, until this ter- 
rible war was forced upon us by ungodly men, for 



9 



years past, wherever you went in the town, 3^011 
would see proofs of substantial prosperity. And 
while there has been manifest improvement in the 
fundamental and honorable business of agriculture, 
in the neat and thriving villages that in the last 
half of this period have sprung up, you could both 
see and hear convincing evidence that a lively busi- 
ness was done, ^particularly in the manufacture of 
wood — even your sapling pines and white birches, 
which forty years since you would perhaps have 
given to any man who would take them away — 
into vessels and utensils of almost every sort for 
domestic use. 

I ought to refer to improvements made in things 
pertaining to every-day conveniences and comforts. 
For instance, in the dwelling-houses and their ap- 
pendages, barns, and other erections, once rare, but 
now common, on the family premises. 

As I pass around the town, I am impressed and 
gratified with the manifest change for the better 
in all your buildings, private and public ; and as, 
according to the unanimous testimony of visitors, 
very few country congregations in New England 
present a better appearance, and make a better 
impression for good sense and intelligence when 
gathered for worship in this " our beautiful house," 
so very few places in this rough region furnish a 
greater proportion of neat and comfortable houses, 
or houses better supplied, as I have very good 
reason to know, with the substantial means of good 
living. And corresponding evidence of progress in 
2 



10 



the tasteful and ornamental is seen in the flowers 
that now adorn your gardens, yards, and windows, 
not to refer to the fruits of the needle and the 
pencil seen in so many houses, — proofs not only 
of diligence and skill, but of elevation of mind and 
refinement of taste and general manners. 

In a historical discourse such as this, the cause of 
education and morality should not be overlooked. 

In regard to the condition of common schools, 
the school-houses, the views and habits of the peo- 
ple on the subject, the qualifications of teachers, 
methods of instruction, the character and supply 
of text-books and other important provisions, the 
amount studied and learned, great progress and 
real improvement in these and other important re- 
spects is very manifest in every part of the town. 
Thirty-five years of actual acquaintance, in the ser- 
vice of the town, with the schools, may justify the 
speaker in a free utterance on this subject. With 
the exception of one school-house, that in District 
No. 12, which stands as a fair representative of the 
buildings passing under that name twice forty years 
ago, every district is now furnished with at least a 
comfortable school-room, most of them with houses 
of rare excellence. And if, passing from the con- 
dition of education in the common school to that 
in schools of higher grade, and to the means and 
actual possession of general intelligence, we exam- 
ine the facts, we shall find evidence of no inconsid- 
erable improvement. 



11 



Previous to 1821, 1 believe four persons, residents 
at the time, if not natives, of the town, had received 
a collegiate education; viz. Joseph Mulliken, Ed- 
ward Payson, James Walker, and Asa Rand, whose 
venerable presence honors this occasion ; since 
that period have graduated Isaac Kimball, Charles 
Walker, George P. Barker, Charles and George 
Shedd, Charles E. Blood, William C. Richards, Ira 
Russell, Joseph B. Brown, and Samuel Burnham. 
While not a few others, having obtained, if not a 
fall public, yet a substantial education, are now, or 
have been, in various capacities, civil, sacred, and 
educational, holding positions of distinction, and 
doing honor to the place of their nativity, by a use- 
ful application of the training they here received. 
Rindge, as well as the State of which she is a rough 
and rocky part, has been, and still is, honorably rep- 
resented by the sons and daughters she has sent 
abroad. 

In regard to the state of morals, this people, 
staid and conservative as they are reputed to be, 
probably have degenerated no more than their 
fellow-citizens in adjacent places. In the observ- 
ance of the Sabbath, reverence for other sacred 
institutions, honesty, integrity, and general up- 
rightness and circumspection of deportment, this 
people will not probably suffer in comparison with 
others of the present day and generation. As to 
the use of intoxicating drinks, though very much 
is drunk, and many are going into the drunkard's 
grave, as many have gone before, yet to the man 



12 



who can remember the practices in this matter 
forty years ago, a great reformation is manifest 
in the views and habits of the people. At the 
period referred to, it was the many that used the 
article, — the few who abstained. Now, it is the 
many that abstain, — the few that drink. 

A fact of general interest touching the cause of 
Temperance may here be stated. At the meeting 
of the General Association of New Hampshire in 
this place in 1827, at the suggestion of your Pastor, 
it was unanimously voted that the members should 
not use at their boarding-houses any intoxicating 
liquors. Previous to this such liquors had been 
present in the families where the members were 
entertained. From that time, it is believed, no 
intoxicating drink has been used or seen in any 
ministerial meeting in the State. 

If other vices and offences have become more 
prevalent than in the days of the fathers, the fact 
is to be deeply deplored, and the guilty are called 
upon to put away the evil of their doings, to " cease 
to do evil," and " learn to do well." And how much 
soever that has been wrong a review of our his- 
tory may bring to light, yet in regard to all that 
pertains to the subjects and interests above con- 
sidered, we have occasion to adopt with grateful 
hearts the language of the text, '^ Hitherto hath the 
Lord helped us." 

II. The Lord hath helped us in our religious 
concerns. 



It appears from the records, that, as early as 1760, 
or eight years from what has generally been con- 
sidered as the permanent settlement of the town, 
measures were taken to secure preaching ; but it is 
believed that the Church was organized near, if not 
at, the time of the ordination of the first Pastor, 
November, 1765. From the votes on record, it is 
rendered very probable that preaching was enjoyed, 
occasionally at least, previous to his ordination. 
Thus, in 1763, the record states that the town 
" unanimously voted to give Mr. Timothy Walker, 
Jr., a call to settle with them in the Gospel minis- 
try, amongst them in said township, if he seeth 
fit." There is no record of his reply ; but he did 
not " see fit " to accept the invitation. Mr. Walker 
is believed to be the gentleman afterward known 
as the Hon. Timothy Walker of Concord, a son of 
the first minister of that town, and for many years 
a Judge of the Court, and a leading man in civil 
affairs. 

On Nov. 6, 1765, Rev. Seth Dean, from Killingly, 
Conn., was ordained the first Pastor, and was dis- 
missed in September, 1780, at his own request. 
Rev. Seth Payson, D. D., became Pastor of this 
Church by ordination, Dec. 4, 1782. He was a na- 
tive of Walpole, Mass., a son of the minister of that 
place, and had two brothers in the ministry. He 
had five sons and two daughters. Of these sons two 
became ministers, one of whom is well known as 
the late celebrated Rev. Edward Payson, D. D., of 
Portland. Dr. Seth Payson was a graduate of Har- 



14 



vard College ; entered the ministry at an earlier 
age than was common at that time ; possessed a 
clear, discriminating mind ; had deep experience 
in spiritual things, and, while he prosecuted the 
work of the ministry with great ability and faith- 
fulness, and secured, in a degree unusual even at 
that day, the confidence and veneration of the 
"flock over the which the Holy Ghost had made 
him overseer," he became one of the leading min- 
isters of his denomination in the State in all eccle- 
siastical and benevolent concerns. After a life of 
great usefulness, he died February 26, 1820, aged 
sixty-two, having just entered the thirty-eighth 
year of his ministry. 

Many anecdotes have been related of Dr. Payson, 
for which there is no room in a discourse of this 
kind; but an incident which he himself often spoke 
of with much satisfaction will not be out of place. 
While on a missionary tour in the then Province 
of Maine, arriving at a dwelling to which he had 
been directed, he overheard the good woman say 
to a neighbor, who had called upon her, " What 
shall I do ? I have nothing to offer the minister 
but Indian cake," " Set it on," replied the neigh- 
bor ; " if he is a good man, he will be satisfied ; and 
if he is not a good man, 'tis better than he de- 
serves." 

And for future reference it is proper to record, 
that the present Pastor, a native of Dunbarton, son of 
Deacon Samuel Burnham of that place, and brother 
of the late Rev. Dr. Burnham of Pembroke, gradu- 



15 



ated at Dartmouth College in 1815, pursued the 
prescribed course of study in the Theological Sem- 
inary at Andover, Mass., left that institution in the 
class of 1818, and, after being employed in the 
Home Missionary service in this State and first 
principal of Pembroke Academy, was ordained the 
immediate successor of Rev. Dr. Payson, Pastor 
of this Church and religious Society, November 14, 
1821.=^ 

The Society, with which the present Pastor be- 
came connected in 1821, was constituted in March, 
1820, and is believed to be the first that was formed 
in this State under what was denominated the 
"Toleration Act" of 1819. Such an organization 
was, at that time, a new thing. Questions, doubts, 
and difficulties were felt and foreseen ; but, " moved 
by a desire," as the founders say, " of enjoying 
among ourselves, and of transmitting to our pos- 
terity, the enjoyment of the benefits accruing from 
the public worship of God, and the ordinances of 
the Gospel," these " good men and true " organ- 
ized the Association, known then, and ever since, 



* The clergymen who composed the Council and took part in the 
ordination were : Rev. Laban AinsAvorth, of Jaffrey, who was Mod- 
erator, and gave the Ordaining Prayer ; Rev. E. Clark, of '^^'in- 
chendon, Scribe ; Rev. Richard Hall, of New Ipswich, Introductory 
Prayer ; Rev. Abraham Burnham, of Pembroke, Sermon from 1 Corin- 
thians iii. 9, " We are laborers together with God " ; Rev. John Gush- 
ing, D. D., of Ashburnham, Charge ; Rev. John M. Putnam, of Ashby, 
Mass., (only member of the Council now living,) Right Hand of Fel- 
lowship ; Rev. John Sabin, of Fitzwilliam, Concluding Prayer. 



16 



by the name and style of " The First Congrega- 
tional Church and Society in Rindge." Eighty-one 
persons, it is supjDOsed, affixed their names to the 
Constitution at the organization of the Society. 
The first name was that of the late Ezra Thomas, 
the second, Samuel L. Wilder, who was its first 
Clerk, and who, with perhaps twenty others, of the 
original eighty-one, still live to enjoy the blessings 
flowing from an institution which they gave their 
names, their influence, and their property to -estab- 
lish and maintain/^" 

For various reasons some withheld their names ; 
many have died, or have removed, and their estates 
have passed out from the Society ; and yet, formed 
for the high purjDOse of maintaining and trans- 

* The following names of the original members are taken from the 
Society Records : — 

Ezra Thomas, Francis Sawyer, 

Samuel L. Wilder, Charles Cutler, 

Hezekiah Hubbard, John Fox, 

Eleazer Blake, Amos Cutler, Jr., 

Ebenezer Brown, Zenas Stone, 

Eliphaz Allen, William Kimball, Jr., 

William Barker, Ezekiel Demary, 

John Perry, Levi Hubbard, 

Andrew Calhoun, Samuel Tarbell, 

Joseph Crombie, Abiel Holt, 

Gates Rand, Azariah Buswell, 

Daniel Norcross, Joshua Towne, 

William Sherwin, James Bobbins, 

Joshua Converse, Joseph Moors, 

Thomas Ingalls, Ira Converse, 

Joel Raymond, Henry Smith, Jr., 

Salmon Stone, Edward Waldron, 

Abel Perkins, Jr., Asa Jones, 

Josiah Coburn, Peter Howe, 



17 



mitting the Gospel, the Society has, by Divine aid, 
pursued, amidst all the changes that have occurred, 
" the even tenor of its way," and enjoyed the bless- 
ings contemplated by its founders. And while it 
has secured to the members and their families the 
benefits accruing " from the public worship of God," 
it has kept oj)en doors for all who choose to enter 
the house of God, whether or not they have con- 
science enough to aid in supporting the privileges 
Avhich the Society has placed, and still keeps, within 
their reach. 

And in this connection it may not be amiss to 
record a few facts bearing on the financial con- 
dition of the Society. 



William Rugg, 
Joseph Page, 
Joseph Wetherbee, 
Asaph Brown, 
Ebenezer W. Brown, 
John Pritchard, 
Joshua Walker, 
Luke Rugg, 
John Lovejoy, 
David Adams, 
Nathan Johnson, 
Asa Cole, 
Jonathan Kimball, 
Josiah Stratton, 
Benjamin Hastings, 
Ephraim Hunt, 
Andrew Kimball, 
Josiah Pierce, 
John Buswell, 
Hezekiah Sawtell, 
Joshua Todd, 
William Stickney, 
3 



Aquila Kimball, 
Noah R. Cook, 
Selah Lovejoy, 
Asahel D. Shurtleff, 
Leonai'd Wellington, 
James Bowers, 
Aaron Brooks, 
Amos Jewett, 
Joshua Chadwick, 
David Wood, 
William T. Kimball, 
Josiah Sawtell, 
Isaac Wood, 
Amos Cutler, 
Israel Gibson, 
Amos Darling, 
Sardine Stone, 
Nehemiah BoAvers, 
Isaiah AVhitney, 
Quincy Parker, 
Marshall P. Wilder. 



18 



Population of the town is about 1,200. 
Valuation, or taxable property of the town, $500,000. 
« " « " Society, $160,000. 

Average and present number of members, from 80 to 85, or 
about one third of the voters or tax-payers in the town. 

But hitherto the Lord hath so helped, that the 
Society has promptly met every expense. In 1839, 
it remodelled and repaired, at an expense of $4,000, 
this ancient house, built by the fathers in 1796, on a 
solid foundation, and of better materials than can 
now be obtained ; and, with the assistance of the 
liberal and energetic women of their own families, 
and of some others, have rendered it, in external 
appearance, and in the comfort and convenience 
within, not only an honor to themselves, but an 
ornament to the place ; a house which, with the 
chapel, well finished and furnished by the same 
means, is second in conveniences to very few in 
this vicinity. 

And the members of the Society and their fam- 
ilies bore their part in the expense and effort in 
the finishing and furnishing of the beautiful Town 
Hall, on the lower floor, and eastern portion of this 
house. 

Some of the prominent facts relative to the 
meeting-houses occupied by this Church and Soci- 
ety, which some research has enabled me to obtain, 
may be concisely stated. 

The first reference to a meeting-house which 1 
find on record, is a vote passed at a meeting of the 



19 



Proprietors, February 13, 1749, that such a house 
should be built within five j^ears, at their expense. 
In the Charter, also, which is dated at Portsmouth 
on the 16th of June of the same year, it is re- 
quired that a meeting-house should be built within 
five years from that time. But in 1754, at the 
expiration of the time, it was voted inexpedient 
to build a house, on account of the hostile state of 
feeling manifested by the Indians, and peace with 
the Indians appears to have been a condition in 
the Charter on which their obligation in this case 
was binding. At subsequent meetings the propo- 
sition to build a house was rejected, although a 
vote to raise money for preaching was passed at 
two different meetings, and the house of Samuel 
Hodskin* appointed as the place of worship. The 
vote to build a house for the public worship of 
God was at length passed at a meeting held at 
the house of Abel Platts, May 28, 1761, — the 
length to be fifty feet and the breadth forty feet, 
" the posts and all the timbers to be proportion- 
able thereto." Moses Hale, Abel Platts, and Jona- 
than Stanley composed the committee. Some time 
elapsed before the enterprise was commenced, for 
in May, 1764, 1 find it voted "to build a meeting- 
house this spring," and a committee chosen to 
provide the liquor for the raising, in case the non- 
resident Proprietors should refuse to do it. But, 

* This house is supposed to have stood near the present residences of 
Jeremiah Norcross and Asa and Charles E. Stickney, but the precise 
location is not known. 



20 



as I suppose, lest what was deemed so essential 
to the success of the undertaking should not be 
secured, they voted and provided one barrel of mm, 
not for the whole work of erecting and completing, 
but simply for the raishg of the house. 

I find no record of the raising, completion, or 
dedication of the house ; but in 17G5 it was occu- 
pied for public worship under the stated ministra- 
tions of Rev. Seth Dean, the first pastor. This 
house, I have been informed by the late Ezra 
Thomas, Esq., who recollected the building, had no 
pews or galleries in 1770 ; and in 1779 there is a 
vote, and it is the last one relative to that house, 
to finish the meeting-house. 

The next movement in the town regarding a 
place of worship is a vote of thanks to the Rev. 
Mr. Payson, the pastor, relative to a new meeting- 
house, for his " generous offer," and the choice of 
nine persons to prepare a plan. The "generous 
offer" of the pastor was, to give them a hell if 
they would build a new meeting-house within a 
limited period, I think three years. A new house 
was needed both on account of the increased popu- 
lation of the town, and of the inconvenience and 
discomforts of the existing one. 

This vote of thanks was passed in 1792 ; but it 
was not until May, 1794, that a vote was obtained 
to build a new house ; in June, to sell the old 
house ; and September 8, 1794, to accept the plan 
presented for the house, by a vote of thirty-one to 
seventeen, the dimensions to be sixty-six by fifty- 



21 



two feet. But, as is not unfrequently the ease 
in matters of a public nature, there was so much 
delay that the oiler of the pastor was forfeited. 
This delay was occasioned, I learn, by the reluc- 
tance of pew-owners to relinquish their rights. In 
August, 1796, it was voted to build a steeple and 
to let it out at $ 330 ; and on the 17th of October 
was " let out," to use the old-fashioned phrase, the 
raising of this house, within whose walls we are 
now assembled. One or two items regarding the 
arrangements for raising the house may be men- 
tioned, — items which at the time were considered 
of sufficient consequence to be voted and recorded 
in the Town Meeting of a respectable Christian 
community, and they show us the views and habits 
of the generation then on the stage. 
It is on record that the 

Expense of Raising was 

" Food 

" Liquors, &c. 

" Lemons and Sundry Articles 

Total . . . . 75 19 7| 

And four shillings and ninepence were deducted for 
the rum-barrel that was sold. 

These items are not mentioned for the sake of 
exciting a smile, or of diminishing the respect for 
the men of that day, which we ought, and are will- 
ing, to render them. They were as worthy men as 
live now ; but they acted according to the views 
and spirit of their times; while we can rejoice in 



£ 


s. 


d. 


18 








31 


4 





25 


10 





1 





7i 



22 



the improvements that have been made, as well 
in regard to the means of raising meeting-houses 
as in their form and construction. 

I find no record of the dedication of this house, 
but am informed on good authority that the dedi- 
cation occurred January 11, 1797, with a sermon 
by the pastor. Rev. Dr. Pay son. 

In October, 1799, an article was inserted in the 
warrant for Town Meeting, to see if the town 
would raise $ 500, more or less, to purchase a bell. 
This, or some article to the same effect, was nega- 
tived, or passed over, for seven years in succession ; 
and then entire silence in the records on the sub- 
ject until March, 1816, when a vote was passed to 
raise $ 400, to purchase and hang a bell. Thus, 
according to the well-known reputation of this 
people for caution and moderation in the manage- 
ment of their pecuniary concerns, sixteen years 
elapsed after the first motion for a bell was made, 
before the people allowed themselves to be called 
to the house of worship by the solemn but cheer- 
ing sounds that for the last forty-five years have 
saluted their ears as often as the light of the Sab- 
bath has dawned upon them. Upon the Sabbath 
following the hanging of the bell, Dr. Payson, with 
his characteristic aptness in the selection of apj)ro- 
priate texts, preached a sermon from a passage in 
the eighty-ninth Psalm : " Blessed is the people that 
knoio the joyful sound." It may not be known to 
all, however, that the town, as such, was at very 
little expense for the bell. The ground since occu- 






pied by four pews in front, on each side of the 
broad aisle in the room below, then in seats, was 
sold to individuals, and the avails were nearly, if 
not quite, sufficient to defray the cost of the bell. 

Thus we see that the first house for reliijious 
worship in this town was built in 1764 or 1765, 
and on almost the same spot this house was erect- 
ed in 1796, furnished with its first bell in 1816, 
and, with the exception of being painted in 1807 
and 1827, received but few repairs until it was 
thoroughly remodelled in 1839, and dedicated De- 
cember 25th of that year. A sermon was preached 
by the pastor from the text in Ezra v. 11 : " We are 
the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the 
house that was hiiilded these many years ago!' 

In this connection a few words are appropriate 
relative to the salaries of the pastors. 

The salary of Rev. Mr. Dean is not known, — Dr. 
Payson received two hundred pounds "settlement," 
as it was called, and eighty pounds salary, — near 
the close of his life it was increased to five hundred 
dollars. The present Pastor's salary was, at the first, 
$400, wdth the use of the Parsonage-house and 
land, valued, probably, at the time of his ordina- 
tion, at $ 100. Doubtless the Society intended that 
the Pastor should receive $500 per annum, and 
throughout the changes that have been experi- 
enced in these forty years, no alteration in the 
salary has been made. None has been asked, and 
none proposed. 

It is due, however, to the thoughtful generosity 



24 



of the people to state, that by various gifts, espe- 
cially by "Donation Visits," they have afforded 
great encouragement and substantial aid to the 
Pastor and his fxmily. 

One fact, on the subject of salary, which has 
already been given to the public through another 
channel, should here be recorded to the honor of 
this Society, and for an example to others holding 
the same relation. 

The salary, which is raised by a tax on the mem- 
bers, in the same manner as the tax in the town 
is assessed, has been paid to the Pastor in one sum, 
and for twenty or more years by the same indi- 
vidual,* on the veiy day specified in the contract, for 
thlrtf/-nine years, — excepting the years when the 
day of payment has fallen on the Sabbath ; then 
the money has been paid on the preceding day. The 
Pastor has nothing to do in the matter, but to 
receive the amount at the hands of the Treasurer 
and sign a receipt already prepared, and use the 
money ; and this admirable habit, so excellent 
in its influence on Pastor and people, has pro- 
duced such confidence, that the Pastor has felt 
for nearly forty years about as sure, and, notwith- 
standing the distress of the times, does noio feel 
almost as sure, that his salary will be paid at the 
appointed time as that the sun will rise that day. 
If the people of any other country Parish in New 
Eni2;land have treated their Pastor in this sinorular 
way, the fact has not come to my knowledge ! 

* Jason B. Perry, Esq. 



25 



The tendencies and habits of this people are 
decidedly cautious and conservative ; but they are 
as patriotic, and as ready to make sacrifices for the 
country, — as ready to embark, and, according to 
their ability, are as liberal, in every department 
of Christian benevolence, as any other people or 
congregation in the State. 

And it is deemed proper to note in figures the 
amount of moneys appropriated by this Church and 
Society, and their families, for the support of the 
Gospel, and the various benevolent institutions and 
enterprises of the age : — 

Amount of Pastor's salary, $ 500 per year, forty 

years $20,000 

Remodelling and repairing Meeting-House and 

Parsonage 5,550 

And, knowing as I do the comparatively limited 
means of the people, I think it right to record the 
figures, showing, not the actual toil and sacrifice 
endured, but simply the amount that has been con- 
tributed, chiefly by the female benevolent Societies 
of this Church and Congregation. 

The Sewing-Circle, in forty years .... $1,500 
Ladies' Bible Association, in thirty-three years . 1,000 
Female Auxiliary H. M. Society, in thirty-three years 1,000 
Soldiers' Aid Society, with some help from patriotic 
women not belonging to this congregation, in six 
months ........ 100 

Total $3,600 

Male and Female contributions for home and foreign 

distribution, $30,000 

4 



26 



I observe, further, By divine aid you have en- 
joyed what you beheve to be " the faith once deliv- 
ered to the saints." In other words, that system of 
Christian doctrine which you beheve to be clearly 
taught in the Bible, and which was originally 
received and professed by this Church, has here 
been maintained without variation, and without the 
mixture or addition of novelties and speculations 
of man's device, by which the light of so many 
Churches has been obscured, and their influence 
corrupted. 

With us the inquiry has not been for some new 
scheme of doctrine, but for " the old paths," marked 
out by the Word of God, and trod by the fathers; 
and by walking therein we have found rest. 

The prominent marks of this way are, — the en- 
tire sinfulness by nature of the human heart ; the 
necessity of a radical change, effected by the special 
influence of the Holy Spirit ; the perfection of the 
Divine character and law ; the supremacy and sov- 
ereignty of the Divine government in the kingdoms 
of nature, providence, and grace ; salvation by the 
grace of God, through the atonement made by 
Jesus Christ, received by the sinner in penitence 
and faith ; and a day of future judgment, followed 
by eternal retribution, awarded to each individual 
according to his character. 

And this people have never experienced the 
unhappy influence on all the most important in- 
terests of the community, of a frequent change of 
Pastors. For, during the ninety-six years of its 



27 



existence, it has had only three, — Rev. Seth Dean, 
who was ordained November 6, 1765, and whose 
ministry of fifteen years was closed by his own 
request ; Eev. Dr. Seth Payson, who was ordained 
December 4, 1782, and was Pastor thirty-seven 
years, and the precious fruits of whose able and 
faithful ministry and godly conversation remain to 
this day manifest proofs of the value of perma- 
nence in the pastoral relation ; while the third 
Pastor, ordained November 14, 1821, "having ob- 
tained help of God, continues to this day." Thus, 
in ninety-six years, this Church has enjoyed ninety- 
two and a half years of pastoral labor, seventy- 
seven of them by two ministers, and has been des- 
titute of an ordained Pastor only three and a half 
years ; and during the last forty years has been 
destitute of preaching probably not more than six 
Sabbaths. 

And it is a fact worthy to be noted, that, though 
this Church has, of necessity, in the course of almost 
a hundred years, experienced difficulties and trials, 
yet in all this period only four times has an Eccle- 
siastical Council been called ; and in these instances, 
not to " advise " in matters of difficulty, but simply 
to ordain three Pastors, and dismiss one of the 
three. Doubtless some advantages arise from an 
occasional change of Pastors ; these, however, it is 
believed, are overbalanced by those flowing from 
the continuous ministrations of one, who, qualified 
for his work at the first, and identifying himself 
with the peop'le, devotes himself for life to labors 



28 



for their good. In the blessings of such a ministry 
this people have richly shared. And in view of the 
numerous conflicting elements and revolutionary 
agencies that have been working all around us dur- 
ing these forty years, seriously affecting both the 
ministry and the churches, the measure of peace 
and quietness this Church has enjoyed in itself, 
and under an uninterrupted ministry, demands this 
day a devout acknowledgment of the goodness 
of God. And I here state as a fact, that my es- 
teemed ministerial brother, Kev. Dr. Barstow of 
Keene, and myself, are the only Congregational 
Pastors in the State now officiating where they did, 
if indeed anywhere, forty years ago. And when in 
my youthful manhood, and with much fear and 
trembling, I ventured to assume the functions of 
the pastoral office in this place, I had not the 
least reference in my mind to any period, long or 
short; I received the people as mine, and gave 
myself to them in this solemn relation, their " ser- 
vant for Jesus' sake " ; and I have reason to believe 
that they responded to this dedication, and are 
ready to-day to unite with me in adopting the 
language of the Hebrew prophet, " Hitherto hath the 
Lord helped 7is" 

And the measure of success which has attended 
the present ministry is certainly to be attributed to 
the Divine blessing. In regard to the peculiar and 
saving results of the Gospel, " It is not of him that 
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
showeth mercy." " Neither is he that planteth any- 



29 



thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth 
the increase," This is the doctrine of the Bible, 
is confirmed by all experience, and the truth of it 
is felt by every true minister of Christ. 

If, then, general intelligence, the cause of learn- 
ing, morality, benevolence, and the common welfare 
of the people have been promoted in the period 
embraced in this discourse, — if, especially, the chil- 
dren of God have received "aid and comfort" on 
their way heavenward, and others have cordially 
received the truth and laid hold on eternal life, — I 
feel bound devoutly to recognize and record this 
day the unmerited goodness of God. That in some 
measure these precious fruits have here been pro- 
duced, I should sin against God, and abuse his 
grace, were I to entertain a doubt. And let Pastor 
and people join in the devout ascription, " Not unto 
us, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, give 
glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake." 

During the present ministry, ten seasons of spe- 
cial interest in spiritual things have been enjoyed ; 
those most memorable were in 1822 and 1842 ; 
those most limited in extent and fruits, in the 
winter of 1847-48, the spring of 1850, and the 
winter of 1857-58. And in all these precious 
seasons of intense labor, as well as of joy, no 
professed " Evangelist," or " Revival Preacher," so 
called, has been employed, or desired. Whenever 
the demand for labor has been beyond the ability 
of the Pastor to meet, assisted, as he has always 
been, with great readiness and good-will, by the 



30 



Church, ministers of churches in the vicinity, in 
whose experience and discretion we had confidence, 
have " come over and helped us." 

At the commencement of the present ministry 
this Church contained from one hundred and forty 
to one hundred and fifty members ; and during 
these forty years have been added 481 by pro- 
fession, — average 12 a year, — and 100 by letter; 
total, 581. Removed, 174 by death; 180 by dis- 
mission to other churches; and 20 by exclusion. 
While 200 are now resident members, only 12 are 
living who were members forty years ago. 

In this connection it may be well to state, that 
I have baptized 488 persons, solemnized 265 mar- 
riages, and attended, probably, 650 funerals. 

No particular account of the Sabbath School can 
here be admitted. It ought, however, to be re- 
corded and uttered, on this occasion, that this 
important institution, though not elevated from 
its proper sphere, nor shorn of its proper power 
by putting it into the place and time assigned to 
the preaching of the Word, has been most highly 
valued, steadily maintained, and with an increase 
in interest and numbers, to the present time. It 
embraces two thirds of the congregation, and has 
furnished probably five sixths of those who have 
been admitted to the Church on profession. 

This people were trained by my predecessor to 
excellent usages, and their prevailing sentiment 
and practice is in favor of "keeping the Sabbath, 
reverencing the sanctuary," rendering due respect 



31 



to the ministry, and sustaining and attending the 
public worship of God. And from actual examina- 
tion I feel safe in saying, that a larger proportion 
of the inhabitants are regular attendants upon the 
ministrations of the sanctuary on the Sabbath than 
in any other place in this section of the country. 

Two thirds of the population are justly reckoned 
as attendants at the house of God. This estimate, 
of course, embraces the congregation worshipping 
at the Methodist Chapel. The congregation to 
which it has been my privilege to minister so long 
is the largest, except one, in the county, and there 
are but few larger in the State, aside from the city 
assemblies. 

The office of Deacon, important as it is to the 
efficiency of the ministry and the edification of the 
Church, ought to receive at least a passing notice 
in this Discourse. 

The course pursued by this Church in relation 
to this responsible office has been designed, and, as 
we think, adapted, to elevate the position, and give 
it weight and honor in the estimation of the Church 
and the community, and increase of usefulness in its 
appropriate line of service. 

A simple choice, by the vote of the Brethren, has 
not been deemed according to the example of the 
primitive Christian Church and the Apostles at the 
institution of the Deaconship, or sufficient to meet 
the full design of the office. Nor has this Church 
adopted, as some other churches have done in these 
revolutionary times, the method of choosing for a 



32 



limited period, or by rotation, — so that all who, like 
Diotrephes, " love to have the pre-eminence," may 
have " a chance " to gratify their unholy ambition. 

Chosen by the Brethren, and after due delibera- 
tion signifying their acceptance of the appointment, 
the Deacons have been inducted into the office with 
regular, full Divine service, — prayer, sermon, and 
ordination. And the choice and intention has been 
according to the old platform and practice in ap- 
pointing the judges of the New England Courts, — 
"during good behavior"; and the fact that all who 
have occupied this important post in this Church 
have maintained it till death or change of resi- 
dence shows that, in the judgment of the Brethren, 
they " used the office of a Deacon well." No record 
or report of impeachment is found. 

Since the organization of the Church, in 1765, 
thirteen have held the office : — 

Josiah Ingalls, Ebenezer Brown, 

John Lovejoy, Benjamin Eddy, 

Edward Jewett, Luther Goddard, 

Francis Towne, Adin Cummings, 

David Barker, Joseph B. Breed, 

Hezekiah Hubbard, Omar D. Converse. 
Eleazer Blake, 

The two last mentioned are now officiating to the 
acceptance and edification of the Church. 

And it is due to those who in past years have 
been, and to those who now are, members of the 
Choir, to say that, from the time when, forty years 
ago this day, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder conducted 



33 



the singing at my ordination, to the present hour, 
the music in this Church has, in my judgment, 
been equal, if not superior, to that in any other con- 
gregation in this vicinity with which I have been 
acquainted ; and that during this long period the 
Pulpit and the Choir have been on intimate and 
harmonious terms. 

In reviewing his own history, the Pastor would 
do injustice to himself if he should neglect in this 
public manner to use the language of the text in 
his own behalf, — "Hitherto hath the Lord helped 
himy Helped in his duties, — in the study, the sanc- 
tuary, as "overseer of the flock of God," — in duties 
pertaining to the sick, the afflicted, and the dying, 
— duties as spiritual guide to Christians and in- 
quiring sinners, — and all the round of cares and 
labors expected of a New England country Pastor. 
He has helped me and my family in toils and trials 
•which have been appointed for them to endure, — 
and those severer trials which belong more par- 
ticularly to the Pastor, and which arise peculiarly 
from his relations and work as a Christian minister. 
But of trials I have no intention or disposition to 
speak in this Discourse ; but only to recognize the 
help which God has afforded, and which has hith- 
erto sustained me in all the way that He has led 
me these forty years. 

In this time I have ivritten 2,050 sermons, covering 
10,000 sheets of sermon-paper, and, with some excep- 
tions, — through feeble health in 1828 and 1829, — 
have met the people almost every Sabbath twice, and 

5 



34 



generally three times. Besides this, I have taken 
an active, and to nie a very delightful part, in the 
Sabbath School, having charge, particularly for thirty 
years past, of a class of from ten to thirty-five 
young men, who, for intelligence, sound mind, and 
other essential elements of a good character, are 
inferior to no other equal number of young men in 
the Congregation. Of miscellaneous writings, and 
other services, of which there is almost no end, I 
give no enumeration. 

But while it becomes me thankfully to acknowl- 
edge the good hand of God, which has upheld me 
in labors, trials, and responsibilities incident to no 
other calling, I am very happy in having this 
opportunity to express, in the presence of these, 
my brethren and this assembly, and here to record 
with gratitude, the uninterrupted confidence which 
this people have placed in me ; the forbearance 
which they have exercised, and the innumerable 
kindnesses which in various ways they have shown 
to the Pastor and his family. May the God of all 
grace and comfort pour upon you and your chil- 
dren still more abundantly the blessings of his 
providence and grace. 

And I trust the people are ready to acknowledge 
the help of God in preserving them, and prospering 
them in all their important interests ; especially, in 
enabling them to support and enjoy uninterrupt- 
edly for so long a time, the blessings of an evan- 
gelical ministry. To deepen your convictions of 
the value of the pure Gospel, and of your indebted- 



35 



ness to God, just compare your present condition 
with what it ivoiild have been had not the ordi- 
nances of rehgion been maintained here for eighty, 
or for the last forty years. 

Suppose that during all this time this House of 
God had been closed ; no preacher of righteousness 
had stood up in this pulpit, and set forth in the 
name of Christ the great truths of his word ; and 
no spiritual guide, no man of God, had been seen 
among you, moving from house to house to impart 
instruction, admonition, and consolation to the peo- 
ple ; or su^Dpose that you had been occupied, as 
some churches and societies have been, half of the 
time these forty years in obtaining and dismissing 
ministers, calling councils, changing creeds and 
forms, and, like the Athenians, in constant pursuit 
of some " new thing ^^ or that you had been subject- 
ed to a ministry corrupt in doctrine or practice, or 
in both. 

While, then, this people are reminded to-day of 
the comparatively peaceful, onward way in which 
God has led them, let them render due acknowl- 
edgment to the blessed Gospel, whose genuine fruits 
are so manifest on every side. Let them remem- 
ber, too, that these blessings flow directly and 
legitimately from strict adherence to that scheme 
of doctrine which has been accepted, preached, and 
maintained here from the settlement of the town 
to this day. 

As we stand here, then, to-day. Pastor and flock, 
after forty years of toil and trial, joy and sorrow. 



36 



mutually shared, united still, and cordially, for 
aught I know, as at the first, we do devoutly ex- 
press, before God and this assembly, and here 
record our indebtedness to Divine mercy, in the 
language of the ancient Hebrew leader, — " Hitherto 
hath the Lord helped us." 

By this imperfect review of our history, an 
inquiry is suggested, of deep interest to this 
Church and Society, to the cause of truth, and the 
highest welfare of this people. 

The Lord hath helped you hitherto ; but how 
can you secure his help in time to come ? You will 
need his aid in the future as really as in the past. 
The Pastor, and the few who have walked and wor- 
shipped, labored and suffered with him for all this 
period, and yet survive, must soon pass from the 
stage, and leave all the precious interests here 
concerned to other hands. The past experience of 
the Pastor encourages him to hope for all needful 
Divine aid during the little time he may" be allowed 
to live and to labor for the salvation of those who 
have been intrusted to his pastoral care ; and the 
Church and Society have equal reason to hope for 
the help of God in coming time, provided they 
pursue the course in regard to the Gospel which 
has so manifestly received the approbation and 
blessing of God nearly one hundred years in this 
place. If the Lord has helped, and so richly blessed 
you in connection with an evangelical ministry 
and unbroken pastoral relations, and you and your 
children to-day rejoice in the invaluable fruits of 



37 



such a ministry as has been maintained among this 
people, and if, as is well known, the effects of the 
same system of truth are everywhere substantially 
of the same character, then the way to secure the 
Divine aid and blessing in the time to come is plain. 
The general condition in this case is, the united 
and permanent support of those institutions to 
which you are so deeply indebted for your past 
peace and prosperity. 

Reference is had, not only to the support of 
public worship in its appointed forms, but to the 
maintenance of that system of doctrine believed by 
the Pilgrim Fathers, by Edwards, Griffin, Woods, 
your own venerated- Payson, and other lights of the 
New England churches, — a system of truth which, 
when rightly set forth by the ministry, is most 
healthful in its influence on all the interests of men 
the world over, and "is the power of God unto 
salvation to every one that believeth." As we truly 
say of our government, it is the best under heav- 
en, founded by the Fathers under the supervision 
of God, and has worked well and filled the land 
in its breadth and lenorth with blessino-s ; so the 
scheme of Christian doctrine here referred to, usu- 
ally denominated Evangelical or Calvinistic, and 
the Congregational Church polity, and perma- 
nence in the pastoral office, have worked well in 
all past generations. And while you and your 
children gratefully acknowledge to-day the bless- 
ings you and they and your fathers received 
through this channel, look over New England, 



38 



the moral garden of the world ; look at the great 
West, and onward to the Pacific Ocean, where a 
second New England is rising up to bless the land 
and the world. And think, too, of the wonderful 
results of the missionary work in heathen lands, 
and bear in mind that all are directly and indirectly 
the genuine fruits of this "glorious Gospel of the 
blessed God." Let it be here maintained, then, to 
the end of time. And whoever in coming years, 
having the taste and spirit of these times, may 
wish and undertake to effect an essential change in 
the religious faith and usages here so long main- 
tained; to disturb waters that have been compara- 
tively so quiet, and which have been sending forth 
blessings of incomprehensible value to three whole 
generations ; let that man be admonished that he 
will take upon him a fearful responsibility. It is 
much easier to disturb than to allay, to scatter 
than to gather up, to divide than to unite, to de- 
molish than to build up. 

But in reference to the inquiry. How may the 
help of God, in the present application of the lan- 
guage, be secured in time to come ? only a sug- 
gestion or two will be made. 

The institutions of God's appointment must be 
treated as He requires. Thus the Gospel, the Sab- 
bath, the ministry, and the ordinances of religion 
must be more highly valued. All reasonable effort 
must be made to support the public worship of 
God, and the stated ministrations of an ordained. 



39 



evangelical, godly, and otherwise qualified Pastor ; 
and the doctrines of the Gospel believed, and its 
precejDts obeyed. 

• It is necessary that your cJdldren should be trained 
to support and obey the Gospel. 

The slight sense of obligation in this matter now 
manifested by a large portion of the young will in 
process of time be entirely lost, luiless, contrary 
to the practice of some of whom better things are 
reasonably expected, parents and heads of families 
shall faithftdly endeavor to produce in the mind of 
those committed to their care an abiding conviction 
of the value of the Gospel, and their obligation to 
support and obey it. 

The young should be reminded of the goodly 
heritage which they have received from the fathers, 
— the precious fruits of an Evangelical ministry, 
continued, as has here been the fact, from past gen- 
erations. The founders of this Society felt, for they 
had experienced, the inestimable value of Christian 
institutions, and made the effort and sacrifice neces- 
sary to secure for themselves and their posterity 
the enjoyment of the Gospel. They entertained the 
real Puritan conviction on this subject; as one of 
the early New England fathers said, " A true New 
England man could no more live without a minister 
than a blacksmith could work his iron without fire." 

Aim to fix this conviction in the mind and con- 
science of the coming generation, that they may be 
qualified and ready to take the places and fulfil 



40 



the duties of those who now sustain the institutions 
of rehgion, but who " cannot continue, by reason of 
death." 

And while I exhort you, beloved Brethren and 
friends, to cherish a deeper sense of your own 
indebtedness to the Gospel, and train your children 
to understand and fulfil their duties to God and 
their fellow-men, so that you and they may rea- 
sonably hope for Divine help in time to come, I 
only add, — "Follow after the things which make 
for peace, and things wherewith one may edify 
another." And while you contend earnestly for the 
maintenance of the "faith once delivered to the 
saints," " endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit 
in the bond of peace." Learn the wholesome lesson 
suggested by the facts of your own history, as given 
to-day, and that of contemporary churches and re- 
ligious societies, around you and elsewhere. 

"Now, the God of peace, that brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd 
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting 
covenant, make you perfect in every good work 
to do His will, working in you that which is well 
pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom 
be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 



ORIGINAL HYMN, 

WRITTEN FOR THE OCCASION, 

BY SAMUEL BUENHAM, 

AND SUNG BY THE CHOIR AFTER THE DISCOUKSK. 



Memories of the past come swelling 
O'er the grave of twoscore years ; 

Scenes of joy and sorrow telling, 
Sun and shadow, smiles and tears. 

Merry shouts of joy and gladness 
Ring out from the shadowy past, 

While the mournful tones of sadness 
Wail like winter's shivering blast. 

Many a loved one, fondly cherished, 
Calmly in yon churchyard sleeps ; 

Many an orange-flower has perished, — 
Many a willow sadly weeps. 

Many a voice has ceased its singing, 
But in brighter, fairer skies. 

Where heaven's harmonies are ringing. 
Joins that song which never dies. 

Yet we feel that, hovering near us. 

Spirits of the sainted dead 
From the dim past come to cheer us. 

With their guardian wings outspread- 



42 

Thus do memories come pressing 
On the track of bygone years ; 

And, though sorrow came with blessing, 
Smiles are glistening through the tears. 

Bless to us past mercies given, 

Bless to us this festal day ; 
Point us all the road to heaven, 

Lead us in the shining way. 

Just beyond death's narrow river. 
Heaven's own glories on us shine ; 

Grant that flock and shepherd ever 
There may sing of love divine. 



EXEECISES IN THE TOWN HALL. 



Immediately after the close of the services in the 
Church, Jason B. Perry, Esq., Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements,''' invited the audience to 
proceed to the Town Hall, which was appropriately 
decorated, and where a bountiful collation was in 
readiness. 

Stephen B. Sherwin, Esq., of Rindge, presided at 
the collation and during the exercises of the after- 
noon and evening. 

After the audience had been seated so far as was 
practicable, a song was admirably performed by 
Miss Julia E. Houston, soprano singer at the Old 
South Church, Boston ; a Blessing was then invoked 
by Eev. J. W. Guernsey, of Keene, N. H., formerly 
pastor of the Methodist Church in Eindge, and all 
were supplied in the most liberal manner from the 
well-furnished tables. 



* At a meeting of the Society, legally called, a Committee was chosen 
to make all necessary arrangements for the exercises of the Anniversary, 
consisting of Col. Jason B. Perry, Col. George W. Stearns, and ]\lr. 
James B. Robbins. To these gentlemen, and to the various sub-commits 
tees afterward appointed, is to be attributed in a great measure thead- 
mirable order and marked success which attended the whole occasion. 



44 



After the collation, and another song by Miss 
Houston, who contributed greatly to the enjoyment 
of the occasion, during the afternoon and evening, 
by her admirable singing, Mr. Sherwin made a wel- 
coming address, as follows. 

ADDRESS OF STEPHEN B. SHERWIN, ESQ. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — In behalf of our venerable 
Pastor, and the First Congregational Church and Society 
in Rindge, I bid you a most cheerful, a most hearty wel- 
come. We would greet you with a friendly greeting. The 
occasion, the event we celebrate, is of rare occurrence in 
this or any other community. Few indeed are the clergy- 
men who have measured the term of forty years amongst 
any one people. In the retrospect there are many rem- 
iniscences that are dark and chilling, and many that are 
pleasant and cheering, all of which are incident to human 
life. The record of the last forty years shows an onward 
march in every department of life unparalleled in the 
annals of time. Were all the changes, inventions, and 
improvements that have occurred within that time written 
out, they would fill a volume that the measure of no one 
man's life would be sufficient to read. In our own New 
Hampshire but little remains unchanged except our granite 
hills, and even they have not wholly escaped the sweep- 
ing tide of time and improvement. The mighty influence 
of our republican institutions has been felt almost world 
wide, and man has been struggling for his freedom in 
every land. In Europe, revolution has followed revolution 
in quick succession ; the arm of tyranny has been paralyzed 
in Italy, and serfdom in Russia has found its grave. 
The mighty march of improvement in the arts, sciences, 
agriculture, and in everything that pertains to the eleva- 
tion and happiness of man, is unprecedented in the his- 



45 



tory of any other forty years. The many wonderful 
inventions now in practical use which have gradually pre- 
sented themselves, and by common use and association have 
lost all that is strange and wonderful, to the man of forty 
years ago would be most mysterious, most unaccount- 
able. Could the man who has slept beneath the sod the 
last forty years be waked from that sleep to-day, and behold 
a steam-engine followed by a train of cars, freighted with 
human beings, speeding its way among his native hills, 
what think you would be his astonishment, what his con- 
sternation, and to what agency would he ascribe all this ? 
Would he not at once attribute it to that evil spirit of 
which he was so often reminded by the reverend clergy 
of his day ? Show him next that man can take that 
subtile agent, known only to him as seen in the heavens 
by the name of " lightning," charge it with a message, 
send it at his will hundreds of miles in a few seconds, and 
cause it there to write the same on paper, — would he not 
be doubly confirmed in his first opinion ? Such, ladies and 
gentlemen, are examples of some of the wonderful and 
practical inventions that have dawned upon the world 
during the stay of our venerated Pastor amongst us. 

I would not dim or mar your happiness on this occasion ; 
but there is another change which is a sadder picture. 
The great heart of the nation throbs with anxious and dis- 
turbed pulsations : what man, looking from the stand-point 
of forty years ago, ever dreamed that to-day the suicidal 
hand would be raised, — that treason would be rife in our 
land, threatening the destruction of the best government 
upon which the sun ever shone ? So it is ; but while the 
picture is dark, our hope for the future is bright and 
joyous. And now permit me to say, I will not by any 
extended remarks delay the audience from the rich enter- 
tainment for which we are all in eager expectation. Again 
I bid you a most sincere, a most cordial welcome. 



46 



The first regular sentiment was then read by the 
President. 

The Clergy of New Hampshire : But few are fortunate 
enough to retain their settlement for the celebration of its 
Fortieth Anniversary. 

Rev. Z. S. Barstow, D. D., of Keene, N. H., was 
then introduced as the only clergyman present, with 
the exception of Dr. Burnham, and beside him the 
only Congregational clergyman in the State, who 
could appropriately respond to the sentiment. 

ADDRESS OF REV. Z. S. BARSTOW, D.D. 

Mr. President : — You call on me to respond to the sen- 
timent. I understand, Sir, that I have been published in 
the papers as one of the speakers on this occasion. But I 
never heard a syllable of it till I came upon this platform. 
Nor had I the most distant expectation of being thus un- 
ceremoniously called upon. 

But, if I understand it, the sentiment calls for remarks 
upon the importance of a " permanent ministry." And, 
Sir, though I admit that our Methodist brethren have some 
advantages from their short pastorates, yet they have lit- 
tle opportunity to form enlarged plans, and to carry them 
out to their results. But our system enables us to give 
ourselves and our full powers to the people over which 
" the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers." It enables us 
to comprehend the wants of the people, their interests, 
their dangers, and the best mealis of promoting their tem- 
poral thrift, their educational necessities, their moral and 
social interests, and the thorough instruction of the people 
in the faith once delivered to the saints. 

Besides, Sir, we have an illustration of this whole subject 



47 



in the discourse which we have heard this day ; of the 
great advantages to be derived from a permanent ministry, 
in the prosperity of the people, the stability of the Church, 
and their general advancement in all things lovely and of 
good report. 

And now, Sir, as I am up, I wish to say, that, while the 
great object of the ministry is to train men up for an inher- 
itance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, 
there are side issues of incomparable benefit to society. 
Among other things, we may speak especially of the power 
of the pulpit in promoting liberty and the general weal of 
the nation ! Why, Sir, while we attribute to Mr. Jefferson 
great praise for his admirable Declaration of Independence, 
we may affirm that all the great principles contained in that 
document had been elaborated, discussed, and wrought 
into the minds of the people by the clergy of New England 
and New Jersey, and Mr. Jefferson himself acknowledged 
that "the platform of the Congregational Church sug- 
gested the platform of our liberties " ! 

And Mr. Hume himself, who was no special advocate of 
the Puritanical principles of our fathers, acknowledged 
" that, whatever of civil and religious liberty England now 
enjoys, she owes it all to the Puritans " .' And every one 
knows what a power the pulpit had in clipping the wings of 
the hierachy, purifying the liturgy of its Popish complexion, 
and " giving strength to the democracy of England." 

We might go still further, and affirm that the clergy did 
much toward giving the key-note in the declaration of 
American independence. It was Witherspoon, and not the 
elder Adams, that first gave the impulse to the Convention 
at Philadelphia ! He stepped forth, saying, in substance, 
though I cannot remember his words precisely : " I have a 
wife and children that I tenderly love, and God has 
blessed me with earthly possessions ! And I am ready to 
sacrifice all. Let us be free ! " And from that arose the 
enthusiasm and courage of that venerated Convention! 



48 



But I need not enlarge. I have only to refer to the 
words of Cowper : — 

" The pulpit (in the sober use of its legitimate, peculiar powers) 
Must stand acknowledged ivhile the loorld shall stand. 
The most important and effectual guard, 
Support, and ornament of virtue^ s cause." 

The pulpit does more to promote political economy 
and to advance the common weal, than statesmen, pris- 
ons, and the power of law to prevent. the outbreakings 
of crime, and to make human society tolerable I Yes, 
Sir, it does more than all things else to promote men's 
welfare. 

Therefore, we say to the good people of Rindge : " Hold 
on upon a permanent ministry. And remember, that while 
there are many new things, and many true things, the new 
things are not true things, and the true things are not 
new ! " 

Rev. Asa Rand, son-in-law of the Rev. Dr. Seth 
Payson, former Pastor of the Church and Society 
in Rindge, was then called upon to respond to the 
following sentiment : — 

The Memory of Dr. Payson : " Instead of the fathers 
shall be the children." — Rev. Mr. Rand, a native of 
Rindge, and son-in-law of the venerated Payson, and known 
to the public from the press and the pulpit, is welcomed by 
his townsmen as an honorable connecting link between the 
present and the past. 



ADDRESS OF REV. ASA RAND. 

Respected Friends : — Your chairman proposes that I 
speak of the past and the present ; of your former Pastor 
and his times; of the pulpit and the periodical press. 



49 



with both of which I have had responsible connection 
in my protracted Hfe and labors. But he allows me 
only a few minutes ; and will therefore permit me to 
confine myself chiefly to the first part of Dr. Payson's pas- 
torate, with which I was personally acquainted. As I am 
almost a stranger in the present congregation, and feel that 
I belong to a generation which long since passed away, 
it may be necessary to give a brief account of myself. 
Know, then, that I was born in this town seventy-eight years 
ago, in the year after Dr. Payson's settlement ; toiled upon 
a rugged farm to the age of nineteen ; then went abroad to 
acquire an education for the ministry, upon which I entered 
about fifty-four years since. My pastoral labors were be- 
stowed on a beloved people in Maine during fourteen years ; 
though frequently interrupted by severe illness, which con- 
tinned from one or two weeks to six months at a time, and 
at length imperatively demanded a dissolution of a happy 
pastoral relation, which might have continued to this day 
but for this providential dispensation. My next thirteen 
years were devoted principally to editorial labors, with 
very little public speaking. Regaining health in a good 
measure, I returned to the pulpit, preaching as stated 
supply and acting pastor in several places, with little inter- 
ruption by sickness, during the nineteen years succeeding. 
For the six years past, encompassed with infirmities, I 
have lived retired from public labors, waiting for my final 
summons to depart. My personal acquaintance with this 
people for almost sixty years has, you perceive, been very 
slight, being acquired only by brief and infrequent visits. 
Of the first half only of Dr. Payson's ministry can I speak 
farther back than others. I am without doubt the oldest 
native of the town now present. Two others I find who are 
some five years younger. One brother,* not a native, who 
came to the town in early manhood, six years older than 

* S. L. Wilder, Esq. 



50 



myself, can look back on Rindge and its people nearly as 
far, and trace their history down to the present hour, when 
he stands before you to recount the mercies of God to you, 
and him, and his, under the ministry of both your venerat- 
ed pastors. When I received your kind invitation to meet 
you on this occasion, I doubted the prudence of exposing 
my health and life abroad in November weather. But my 
heart came at once, and now a kind Providence has brought 
me here in person. And here I am glad to be ; for here 
passed the days of my childhood and early youth ; here 
are the graves of honored parents and beloved kindred ; 
here some of my relatives yet reside, and stand connected 
with your church ; here I was joined in marriage with my 
first beloved companion, the eldest daughter of Dr. Payson, 
whose life on earth was short, and whose only child now 
living, William Wilberforce Rand, had much pleasure in 
once preaching the Gospel to you the summer past. Well 
may I love to unite with you in mutual congratulations 
and thanksgiving to the God of all grace, who, when He 
saw fit to call home the venerated Pastor of my youth. He 
set another light in the golden candlestick, and has kept it 
burning so brightly these forty years. To God be all the 
glory. 

But what of Rindge in the early past ? Rindge was a 
rough and rocky place. Myself and my contemporaries, 
and especially our fathers before us, were chiefly agricul- 
turists, compelled to be laborious, industrious, and frugal. 
I see you have made great changes and improvements, 
which Dr. Burnham has named, contrasting the present 
aspect of material things with that which he first saw on 
his coming among you. What would he have said if he 
had looked over the town one or two generations earlier ? 
Why even now your soil is rugged, and demands incessant 
toil. Coming to this neighborhood after a sojourn of fifteen 
years in Central New York and Ohio, I could not but ex- 
claim, How can this people live ? But I called to mind 



51 



the lessons of my youth, and laid together the results of 
extensive observation at the East and the West, both in 
city and country ; and I here declare to you my firm con- 
viction, that your physical training and mine, with all its 
stern necessities, is more favorable to the formation of a 
sterling cliaracter, whether for our personal happiness or 
honor or usefulness, than that which can usually be 
obtained on the facile and fertile soil of tlie West and 
South, or amid the opulence and indolence of city life. 
I have no doubt that you owe much of your temporal 
prosperity, with your marked stability in your educational, 
moral, and religious concerns, to the influence of your 
rugged soil and climate and your isolated situation. Truly 
each of you may say, with me, "The lines have fallen to me 
in pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage." 

A word concerning schools and facilities for obtaining 
education. We had short schools in summer and winter, 
and we children thought them very good. " Master Fos- 
ter," an excellent penman, and for many years town-clerk, 
was my early male teacher several years. He taught read- 
ing, spelling, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic ; 
not a single word of English Grammar, or Geography, or 
one on that long catalogue of studies you now have, with 
improved methods of study and instruction which learned 
professors had not then dreamed of. Why, if I had retained 
all I knew when I left college, I could not now enter the 
Freshman Class, and could scarcely receive the approbation 
of your examining committee as teacher of a common 
school. Of books for intellectual and moral improvement 
we had but few in our dwellings, with access to a small 
social library, kept some years at the house of the Pastor. 
These were adapted to adults and older scholars ; but for 
children we had only the ever-blessed Bible, Watts's Psalms 
and Hymns, and the New England Primer, with its blue 
paper cover and precious contents ; among which was the 
Assembly's Catechism, which every child should write upon 



62 



his heart, and every aged man and woman repeat weekly 
till their dying day. For children's papers, and even re- 
ligious periodicals for adults, we had literally none. But 
now what scores and hundreds of papers and magazines 
and Sabbath-school books for all ages. Parents are at a 
loss to select what is safe and useful ; and youth are in 
danger of being corrupted with that literary trash which 
Satan and his publishers thrust before them at every turn. 
Ah ! the Word of God was precious in those days, — scarce ; 
here a little, and there a little. Now the heavenly manna 
falls every morning about your dwellings, with a tenfold 
portion when you go up to the house of the Lord and listen 
to your teachers, your assiduous Pastor among them, feed- 
ing the lambs in the Sabbath School and the sheep from 
the pulpit. Truly, blessed are the people who hear the 
joyful sounds ; yea, blessed are they who so hear the Word 
of God and keep it. In my youth I heard nothing of a 
Sabbath School or Bible Class ; only of a catechetical lec- 
ture by the Pastor. I think there were not stated meetings 
for conference and prayer ; and the time had not come for 
the ministers and churches in this region to engage in mis- 
sionary and other benevolent enterprises which now bless 
the Church and the world. Later in his ministry, and quite 
fts early as others, Dr. Payson promptly and earnestly en- 
gaged in these labors of love, as you well know, and led on 
his people in the Avork. 

I must say a few words concerning the ministry of Dr. 
Payson at that early period, his doctrine, manner of life, 
pastoral labors, and influence upon the people of his charge. 
He exerted a happy influence upon schools and families, 
and on the intellectual and moral training of the young. 
Of the character of his preaching, as Scriptural, lucid, 
faithful, solemn, and affectionate, your present Pastor, with 
many others, has borne a decided testimony. He also 
makes grateful mention of the influence of those ministra- 
tions, together with a consistent life, and his oversight of 



53 



the flock, on the state of morals and religion, and the pros- 
perity of the Church. Thus, through the protracted labors 
of his predecessor, Dr. Burnham found things in a good 
degree made ready to his hand ; so that, through Him that 
giveth the increase, the sower and the reaper may rejoice 
together, and together give all the glory where all is due. 

To this testimony I can only add the experience and ob- 
servation of a wayward child ; for I must ever lament that 
I did not repent and believe till my last year in college, 
and my name was never enrolled in this Church. But I 
shall ever bless God that my feet were early led to trudge 
three miles over these hills, to and from this house of God, 
and that which preceded it ; that I was taught to remember 
the Sabbath day, and reverence the sanctuary ; and that I 
heard such preaching as made the sinner tremble and re- 
solve, though he might soon forget. Yes, I fully believe 
that the constant preaching, which I could never treat with 
levity of speech or feeling, restrained me from vice, en- 
lightened my mind, kept my conscience measurably tender, 
settled my convictions of fundamental truth, and thus pre- 
pared the way, when the Spirit came with quickening 
power, for my becoming a living believer and an unworthy 
soldier of the cross. 

Of the character and state of the Church at that period 
I could be but a poor judge. I saw them walking in the 
ordinances of the Lord harmoniously ; many, I thought, 
feared God and wrought righteousness ; and of some, 
spiritually-minded and prayerful, I was constrained to say, 
" There is a daily beauty in their lives, that makes me 
ugly." I think there were not at that period copious 
showers of grace upon this people, such as have since 
attended the labors of both your pastors. Yet God granted 
the former and the latter rain, and the Church was in- 
creased and refreshed from year to year. In this commu- 
nity at large I think the general impression was, that the 
doctrine according to godliness was here preached ; that 



54 

pure and undcfiled religion is the one thing needful for all ; 
and that such a ministry as they had should be stated, 
regular, and permanent. Under it, as under that which 
followed it, the people were not given to change ; and no 
one suspected that the Pastor would forsake the people 
whom he loved, till he had finished the work which his 
Lord had given him to do. 

To-day we review the past, and lay upon our souls the 
responsibilities of the present, as they bear upon the future. 
The past is gone forever, the future is unknown to mor- 
tals, the present is all we can call our own. But what a 
price it puts into our hands, to get wisdom, to attain salva- 
tion, to glorify God, to perpetuate Gospel privileges, to 
diffuse on earth the knowledge of redeeming love. Pastors 
and people die, and go to their final account. In forty 
years, a number equal to your usual congregation, twice 
told, have here joined the congregation of the dead. Have 
all these washed their robes, and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb ? God alone knoweth. With us, num- 
bered with the living still, there is hope ; an accepted time, 
a day of salvation, a space for repentance, a time to work 
in the vineyard of the Lord. Shall we, by help from 
above, make it as the beginning of still brighter days to 
this people, to the Church of Christ, and a dying world ? 
Have all our brother's hearers believed on Christ to the 
saving of the soul ? Is this Church an epistle of the living 
God, known and read of all men ? Have you done, and 
will you do, all that in you lies, that " the Word of the 
faith of the Gospel " may be with you, and your children, 
and your children's children, till time shall end ? God 
grant it, for his mercy and his truth's sake. 

And now, brethren and friends, we commend you to God 
and ^the Word of His grace, who is able to build you up, 
and give you an inheritance among them who are sanctified. 

My brother, respected and beloved, go forth yet longer to 
your work of faith and labor of love, until the even of life 



55 



shall come. May you yet turn many unto righteousness, 
who shall be your joy and crown of rejoicing at the aj^)- 
pearing of Jesus Christ. 

The President then announced the following sen- 
timent : — 

The Sons of old Rindge : Many have distinguished them- 
selves in the different departments of life ; wherever they 
are, they will always meet with a right hearty welcome at 
the old homestead. 

Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, of Dorchester, Mass., 
a native of Rindge, was called upon to respond, 
and addressed the audience in the following lan- 
guage. 

ADDRESS OF HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 

Mr. President : — I thank you for the compliment paid 
by your toast to the sons of old Rindge, and I am most 
happy here and everywhere to respond for them with such 
ability as I possess. I rejoice in the privilege of being 
present on this occasion; but when our honored pastor 
stated that forty years ago I acted as chorister at his ordi- 
nation, I felt a sensation of age creeping over me ; but in 
the presence of so many with whom I was acquainted in 
youth I feel that I still belong to the rising generation. 
(Laughter.) My associations and recollections of this good 
old town are of the most affectionate and interesting char- 
acter. And who that has a soul within him can forget the 
place of his birth, the home of his childhood, the old dis- 
trict school where he learned his ABC, the church where 
he was offered at the baptismal font, or the consecrated 
ground in which repose the loved and lost ones of earth ? 

But I must not mar the pleasure of this occasion by this 
train of thought. No, rather let me call up the bright 



56 



reminiscences of early life. Although I left Rindge at the 
age of twenty-five, I can remember much that transpired 
before that time. I can remember the old school-house 
where I at.tended when I was but four years old, and which, 
I noticed to-day as I entered the village, like myself had 
grown a little gray with age. This school-house stood on 
the common directly in front of my father's dwelling, the 
seats facing to the north, and I can distinctly remember 
my own on the low bench for the small boys. Nor have I 
forgotten a certain little bunch of twigs, resembling a bun- 
dle of apple-grafts, which hung behind the master's desk, 
and at which ever and anon I cast an anxious glance. I 
remember well the new school-house, as it was called, which 
now stands at the foot of the hill east of us. But alas ! 
this too has been whitened with the snows of more than 
fifty winters. It was here that I was first taught the art of 
writing. The first copies were straight marks, then came 
the trammels, then the pot-hooks, and when I had learned 
to make that mysterious round letter that has no beginning 
or end, I felt that I was in a fair way to become an accom- 
plished penman. 

Well, Mr. President, here was laid the foundation of 
what little education I possess. In truth. Sir, the system 
of education is much more practical now than in those 
days. Then we had no Colburn's Arithmetics, no black- 
boards, and but few of the aids and advantages possessed 
by the present generation. I don't remember. Sir, that I 
was particularly distinguished, except for getting my lessons 
in double quick time, and of course rather hastily. I be- 
lieve, however, I was considered a pretty good arithmeti- 
cian, having gone through Adams's Arithmetic three times 
before I was fourteen years of age ; but I strongly suspect 
my attainments in this branch were much like those of 
some other gentlemen who boast of having gone through 
college ; that is, gone in at one door and out at another ! 
Be that as it may, I have a vivid recollection of my trials 



57 



with some of the most difficult sums, and how, if I could 
not avail myself of the answer from my neighbor's slate, 
my poor head and patience were taxed to work out the 
result. Ah, Sir ! many a time have I sympathized deeply 
in the doggerel rhyme : — 

" Multiplication is vexation, 
Division is as bad ; 
The Rule of Three, it puzzles me, 
And Fractions make me mad." 

And then came the Rule of Proportion ; but for my 
life. Sir, I never could see any beauty in its proportions ; 
and then that awful Rule of Cube Root, — of the philoso- 
phy of whose roots I knew far less than I now know of the 
physiology of the roots of trees and plants. 

But, Mr. President, there was one exercise of which I 
was very fond. I mean the Evening Spelling Matches, 
where each one carried his tallow candle and a nice white 
turnip with a hole in the centre to stick his candle in ; or 
if the turnip was forgotten, how we melted the end of the 
candle and stuck it up on the bench. And I well remem- 
ber. Sir, that when I was captain of a class, and it fell to 
my lot to make the first choice, I had far more anxiety to 
select the prettiest girl in the school to stand by my side 
than for her particular accomplishment in spelling. 

"Well, Sir, here I finished my Common School education 
and entered upon a higher course of study, which my ven- 
erable father — God be thanked that he is spared to be with 
us to-day ! — hoped would terminate in one of the learned 
professions. And, strange as it may seem, I proceeded so 
far as to read six or seven books of the ^neid of Yirgil ; 
and now, lest any one should doubt the correctness of this 
statement, I will attempt to construe and translate a line 
which I have not seen since that time. It ran thus : — 

" Musa/' O Muse ! " memora," declare ; " mihi," to me ; 
" causas," the causes, "quo numine laeso," — Ah! Mr. 
8 



58 



President, my memory falters, and I will leave it to these 
learned divines to translate the three last words. (Laugh- 
ter.) 

But to proceed. My father soon discovered that my mind 
was of too roving a character to be confined to books, and 
accordingly gave me the choice of preparing for college, of 
entering his store, or of working on the farm. I chose the 
latter, it being the most congenial to my natural taste ; but 
it was not long before my assistance was demanded in the 
store, and hence I have been merchant or agriculturist as 
time and circumstance would permit. I think, however, 
I can truly say, that from the day when my sainted mother 
first took me into the garden " to help dress and keep it," 
I have never seen the time when I did not love the cultiva- 
tion of the soil, and I shall never cease to feel that a part 
of my humble mission on earth is to promote this most hon- 
orable and useful of all employments. 

Pardon me, Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen, 
for further allusion to myself, for I have come to the old 
homestead to rejoice with you and to ask forgiveness for 
the errors of youth. I have heard it reported that I was a 
wild boy. Be that as it may, I can assure you that I have 
ever since been Wilder. I have heard it said that if I was 
not guilty of, I was at least cognizant of, some of the mis- 
demeanors which occurred here while I was a boy. To 
this. Sir, in a measure I plead guilty. But while I ac- 
knowledge that I did hear the crash of the old horse-sheds 
as they tumbled over upon the common on a dark, stormy 
Saturday night, I do solemnly aver, in all truth and hon- 
esty, that I had no part or lot in stealing the beehives of 
Mr. Morse, or shearing the horse of Dr. Shurtleff, nor do I 
to this day know who the rogues were ! (Laughter.) 

But, Sir, no more of this. I have undoubtedly sowed my 
share of «wild oats, but, thanks to aifectionate and godly 
parents ! I believe very few of them have ever vegetated. 

Mr. President, I have spoken enough of the foibles of 



69 



youth and of the school-house, which here, as in other 
towns of our blessed New England, stands in public esteem 
next to the chui''ch. But to you, my honored Pastor, I 
would say, your name and profession are more intimately 
associated with this sanctuary around which cluster some 
of the most precious memories of my childhood and youth. 
I can recollect this old church as it then was, with its high 
pulpit, spacious galleries, and its square pews surmounted 
with a balustrade and rail, and how terrified I was if by 
chance I turned one of the rounds and made it squeak, lest 
it should have disturbed the venerable Deacon Blake, whose 
pew was between that of my father and the sacred desk ; 
and how now and then, in time of service, I opened one 
eye and looked around to espy the handsomest young lady 
in the congregation, and that here it was my eye caught 
hers who became my first love and the wife of my youth. 

Of one other circumstance I have been reminded to-day 
by our honored Pastor, namely, that forty years ago this 
day I acted as chorister at his ordination. But, Sir,' there 
are some here whose memory runs back still further. There 
are some here who can remember that I was installed in 
that office when I was but eighteen years of age. Yes, Sir, 
some who can remember when I played the big fiddle, and 
my good friend, Mr. Amos Cutler, played so dexterously 
the little fiddle ; and perhaps our Pastor may have some 
painful recollections of the customs of that time, especially 
of screwing up the strings and thumbing the instruments 
during the last part of prayer, so as to be ready to com- 
mence our part as soon as the minister had finished his. 

But, Mr. President, to be more serious, I am most happy 
to be here to-day, and to participate in the pleasures and 
privileges of this occasion. I never return to this good old 
town, — the place of my birth, the home of my youth, and 
in whose sacred soil repose my mother, my brother and sis- 
ters, the wife of my youth, and some of my children, — but 
I feel sensations which no language can describe. I never 



60 



revisit this ancient town, but with the first glimpse of her 
glorious old hills, over which I have roamed in my youth 
with gun and fishing-rod, my soul rises with the inspi- 
ration of the scene, and I almost involuntary exclaim, 
Thank God, I am with you once again ! 

" I feel the gales that from ye blow, 
A momentary bliss bestow, 
As waving fresh your gladsome wing, 
My buoyant soul you seem to soothe, 
And redolent with scenes of youth, 
I breathe a second spring." 

One word more, Mr. President, in regard to the day and 
land in which we live, and I have done. One year ago we 
were rejoicing in peace and prosperity. Now we are in the 
midst of the most dreadful civil war that ever cursed the 
world, the natural result of sectional hatred and jealousy, 
and. Sir, I feel that I may congratulate your honored Pastor 
and the people of his charge that he has never fostered this 
hatred by the preaching of party politics. I am happy in 
the belief that his heart has been fixed on nobler ends, the 
union of the whole country, and the spiritual welfare of 
his particular charge, and he will allow me to say that I 
consider his example worthy of universal emulation. 

And now. Sir, in view of the wonderful progress and 
prosperity of our country, who can look back to the past 
and forward to the future, without feeling tlie responsibil- 
ities which rest upon us as American citizens. When I 
consider the stupendous proportions of our country, extend- 
ing from ocean to ocean, embracing almost every variety of 
soil and climate, and capable of producing almost all the 
products of the habitable globe, — a country which, before 
some who now hear me shall go down to their graves, will 
contain one hundred millions of souls, — a country whose 
thriving cities and villages rise as by enchantment, and sud- 
denly surpass in arts, commerce, and manufactures the most 
renowned cities of the Old World, — a country whose liter- 



61 



ary, civil, and religious institutions arc the admiration of 
mankind, — a country, too, whose inhabitants from every 
part of the globe are commingling and rapidly assimilating 
into a race far more powerful than any that has preceded 
it, — I cannot but feel that He who rules in mercy as well 
as in justice has a more important mission for these United 
States to perform than for any other nation, and that he 
will bring us out of the trials through which we are pass- 
ing, and make us a wiser and a better people ; that he will 
preserve the Union of these States, and make us one in 
interest, one in inheritance, and one in glorious destiny. 

Let us then be faithful to our high and glorious trust. 
Let us stand by and sustain the government with every 
means in our power. Let us stand by the flag of our 
Union, and for every one that has been struck down by our 
enemies, a thousand shall rise in its stead, and the red, 
white, and blue, like the flowers of the field, blossom again 
from one end of our land to the other. 

The next sentiment was, — 

Rev. Samuel Lee, of New Ipsivich : Unlike Samuel of 
old, it is not necessary to call upon him three times, but 
like him, always ready to answer, "fiere am /." 



ADDRESS OF REV. SAMUEL LEE. 

Mr. President : — Are all the managers of this celebra- 
tion enlisted recruits for the army ? I should infer it ; and 
that the particular department of their drill at present is 
in the science of taking' by surprise. I am their honored 
victim, — taken perfectly by surprise. .And what shall I 
say ? What is my theme ? Myself. And that is very gen- 
eral indeed, — a centre from which I may radiate at any 
conceivable angle to a circumference. 

It might seem appropriate to talk of the past ; and I 



62 



have thought of many things in years long gone by, while 
I have listened to the able discourse of my brother, and 
to the remarks of my friend who has just addressed us. 
But I am not quite old enough to talk, on such an occa- 
sion as this, of the past. I am not yet sixty years old, 
and my ministry but of little more than thirty years. Still 
I remember so far back as to furnish to me a scene very 
unlike the present. And I have to-day gone back to my 
childhood, — to the home of my father, and the employ- 
ments of the family. I remember the fire-place, with its 
high wooden mantle, and how I was proud when I could 
straighten up and touch it with the top of my head ; — 
how I sat in the fire-place, i. e. within the jamb, while 
others were seated at the other extreme, and between us 
a rousing fire, that was perhaps heating the water in a 
four or six pail kettle ; — and how I could look up and see 
through the top of the chimney, the stars in the sky. I 
remember the spinning-wheels of my mother and sister, — 
the " little wheel " and the " great wheel " ; the loom in 
which the yarn produced by these wheels was converted 
into linen and woollen cloth to be worn by the family. I 
remember the school-house of that same period, and the 
church, the modes of travel, <fec., &c. But I have not 
time to do justice to this theme. A thousand particulars 
must be enumerated and presented eaqh in contrast with 
an equal number of the elements of our present condition. 
And besides, as I have said, I am not old enough to talk 
of the past, as could the man of twenty years added to 
mine. 

But shall I talk of the future ? Should I give to you 
the real utterances of my inmost soul, my voice would 
not exactly harmonize with that of the pulpit to-day. I 
have less of reverence for the past than my good brother 
whose anniversary we are celebrating. I am — God grant 
I may never be any other — a man of progress. I do not 
believe that all change is to the worse. Much of the meta- 



63 



physical theology and much of the exegesis of tlic past 
can no more go into the future than can the agriculture 
and the mechanics of the past. I have no veneration for 
the creeds of the fathers. I believe, with Robinson, of Pil- 
grim celebrity, that there is more light yet to break forth 
from the Bible. No ; change is not necessarily for the 
worse. My eye rests habitually upon a blessed, a glorious 
future. A half-century has witnessed a wonderful change, 
that certainly is an improvement. And yet this is but 
a beginning, whose consummation shall be glory. This 
my philosophy teaches, this my Bible : this my heart feels 
must be true. Nothing else will satisfy its love for the 
Redeemer, and desire that he should be glorified by re- 
sults worthy of Him as the Divine administrator of the 
plan of redemption. Jesus is able to save this world, and 
he will do it to perfection. 

But this strain is not exactly appropriate to the cir- 
cumstances in which I am speaking. If my venerated 
brother is not quite as hopeful and quite as progressive 
as myself, yet we agree in almost everything else. I have 
often said that there is no man in the circle of my ac- 
quaintance whose theology is so nearly in harmony with 
my own; — mine metaphysical, his comnwn-sense-ical, — 
and the former finding evidence of its correctness from 
its harmony with the latter. And a ministry, right by his 
side, of the quarter of a century, has had the effect to 
bind my heart very closely to him. We have had some 
happy experiences together in our labors as the servants 
of Jesus Christ. When to-day he spoke of the revival of 
1842, I remembered, with a degree of satisfaction that I 
cannot tell, the fortnight 1 spent with him in that pulpit 
above, and in this room for religious conversation. I re- 
joice that his ministry yet lasts on. May he never know 
what is my experience in being laid aside from his work 
while yet he lives. I had hoped to die with my harness 
on. May he die thus. May he never know what it is to 



64 



live, yet live withaut an object. I live thus. My work 
of life is done. I am having a sort of day of judgment 
while yet in the body. My " life " is of the " things that 
were " and seen in review. I rejoice that I have been a 
minister. As furnishing the material for a hopeful future, 
no conceivable earthly state can for a moment compare 
with it. I had rather go to heaven from the pulpit than 
from the throne, — infinitely rather ! 

But I am talking too long. You gave me, Mr. Presi- 
dent, myself as my theme ; — myself of course as a la- 
borer by the side of your Pastor, and I have talked about 
myself as such. Long may that Pastor live, and gather 
yet greater multitudes to Christ before be shall be called 
hence. 

The President announced as the next sentiment, — 

The Clergy of Massachusetts : Unsurpassed for educa- 
tion, intelligence, and efficiency ; they are always welcome 
to the old Granite State. 

In presenting this sentiment, Mr. Sherwin made 
the following remarks : — 

You will pardon me here, ladies and gentlemen, for 
stating, that a few years since, while in conversation with a 
Massachusetts clergyman, he inquired why it was that the 
good people of old Rindge were so well united in politics 
and religion ? I answered him that this remarkable una- 
nimity must be attributed to one of two things. Either 
the people were consummately ignorant, and knew naught 
else save to follow in the wake of their fathers, or else 
they were tolerably intelligent, and so well " booked up," 
that they were not to be duped by the doctrines and isms 
of modern times. 

I perceive that the same clergyman with whom I had 
this conversation is present on this occasion, and I call 



65 



upon him to respond to the sentiment, and also, if he 
pleases, to settle the question before a Rindge audience 
to-day to which of the two propositions the unanimity of 
our people is attributed, and in settling this question he 
will also settle another; he will furnish the reasons why 
Dr. Burnham has remained with us so long: 
I call upon Rev. A. P. Marvin, of Winchendon. 

ADDRESS OF REV. A. P. MARVIN. 

Mr. President : — I am reminded here to-day of the 
fact that I have had a connection — a slight connection, 
perhaps — with Rindge. I refer to the days of my youth, 
for during the last eighteen years my intercourse with you 
has been frequent and agreeable. It has been stated to-day, 
that Dr. Payson had two sons, who were ministers of the 
Gospel. One of these was the celebrated Dr. Edward Pay- 
son, of Portland. The other was the Rev. Phillips Payson, 
of Leominster, Mass., and afterwards of North Lyme (now 
Lyme), Conn. While there, he was the pastor of my moth- 
er's family, and during my visits at home I often heard 
him preach, and I learned in what estimation he was held 
by the people. Through him some of that influence which 
the elder Dr. Payson exerted so powerfully on his parish- 
ioners reached me. And in this connection it may be grati- 
fying to you to say that Mr. Phillips Payson has a son who 
is now a very promising young minister in the city of New 
York, and a voice behind me says that two others of his 
sons are in a coivse of preparation. 

But, Sir, I was called up by a sentiment and a story. 
In relation to the sentiment, while I am not worthy to rep- 
resent the clergy of Massachusetts, I will say, in their 
behalf, that this tribute of respect is freely bestowed on 
your venerated Pastor, who completes the fortieth year of 
his settled ministry to-day. Though he has not courted 
publicity, yet he has not lived here so long, and pursued a 
9 



66 



career so useful, without becoming extensively known, and 
securing the high regard and esteem of his brethren in the 
ministry. In their name, I now offer the due meed of 
respect and reverence to Father Burnham. It is true that 
he, some years since, almost reproved me for styling him 
" father," yet it seems to me that there is a manifest pro- 
priety in giving one who has become a Doctor of Divinity, 
and has a good right to the degree, and who, besides, has 
been settled in one parish during forty years, that ven- 
erable title. In these years I have not seemed to myself 
to grow old at all, while he has been assuming the double 
crown of age and of honor. Henceforth he is to me 
" Father Burnham." 

And now, to the story of the worthy President of the 
day. It seems that my inquiries about the unanimity and 
stability of the people of old Rindge, .in religious and polit- 
ical matters, excited the suspicion of an intention on my 
part to cast a slur on this good old town ; as if the inhab- 
itants did not think for themselves, but were under the 
thraldom of leaders. This, according to my recollection, 
must have been an entire mistake. The thing that lay in 
my mind was just what we are commemorating here to-day. 
I had reference to the long and able ministry of Dr. Pay- 
son and his successor, and to the influence flowing there- 
from, in securing stability of character. The influence of 
a minister of the Gospel, preaching and living well in 
such a place as this, during a long course of years, is pow- 
erful for good. And the man who can retain his position 
twenty, thirty, forty years, in these changing times, must 
have peculiar qualifications. In the last century, ministers 
were settled with the expectation that they would remain 
" during good behavior," or. to the close of life ; yet even 
then there were many brief pastorates, and a man could 
not retain his hold on the people unless he was a man of 
estimable qualities. But in those days, when parishes are 
restless, and when they all desire the most eloquent and 



67 



popular preacher in the land, and when, moreover, great 
questions are agitating the country, no man can remain 
forty years in connection with the same church and society 
unless he is well qualified for the duties of his high office. 
For, be assured, this position cannot be retained by artifice, 
by trimming the sails to catch the popular breeze, nor by 
anything except substantial merit. It requires piety, discre- 
tion, fidelity in the performance of duty, good temper, 
sympathy with the people in all their joys and sorrows, and 
common sense, which, when bestowed in large measure, is 
one of the rarest gifts ever conferred by the Almighty on 
the children of men. As these are the characteristics of 
your Pastor, we know why — the Lord helping him — he 
has continued to enjoy your confidence and affection. And 
I may add, that he knows how to keep up with the times, 
and in this regard differs from many men in every profes- 
sion and pursuit, who, by clinging blindly to the worn-out 
past, are left as wrecks on the bank of the stream of life. 
And here it occurs to me to express the gratification I feel 
at finding myself in such near accord with your honored 
Pastor on the great exciting questions of the day. I have 
a suspicion that you, in your conservative wisdom, used to 
look on me as a rather '• fast young man," in relation to 
slavery and kindred subjects. Now, I am quite willing to 
confess that I have always believed slavery to be the great 
sin and curse of the land, and, have been in favor of all 
judicious efforts for its speedy overthrow. It is now seen 
to be the cause of this wicked rebellion, which is rending 
our country, and calling us to give up our dear friends, by 
hundreds of thousands, who have gone, and are going, to 
the tented field. And we all feel that the cause of the 
rebellion must be put away, else we shall leave a heritage 
of blood to our children, increasing from year to year, in 
compound ratio. In regard to these things, Rindge and 
Winchendon are in happy agreement. They think the 
same and feel the same concerning the republic. And 



68 



when, not long ago, your minister preached on the war, in 
my pulpit, and, while showing the necessity we are under 
of putting down the traitors, he doublecl up his fist, and 
inquired, what the Lord had given it to us for, unless to 
use in case of emergency, my people felt sure that he was 
quite up to the times ! And it is worthy of note, that you 
were disappointed in me on that day, because there was no 
allusion in my preaching to the political events of the day. 
You were, perforce, obliged to listen to what are some- 
times called regular " Gospel sermons," since I rarely 
allude to political affairs in my Sabbath services, while at 
the very time, my people were listening with interest to 
your - minister, as he exposed the wickedness of the rebel- 
lion, and denounced the leading rebels. This, Sir, may not 
be what is sometimes reprobated as " political preaching," 
but it sounds to me a little like the politics of war. And 
now, Sir, are we square in regard to our part of the con- 
versation to which you alluded when introducing me to 
this assembly ? 

Passing this topic, it is but fair to add, that the minister 
does not deserve all the credit, when the pastoral relation 
has been permanent. There have been many ministers, 
who were amply endowed for the work, and yet have not 
been able to remain forty, or twenty, or five years, in some 
places, because the people were not able to appreciate them, 
nor to estimate the value of a long pastorate. It is your 
distinction that you have been above such folly, and you 
now reap the advantages that flow from the continuous 
labors of one who has known how to care for your estate, 
and has loved to labor for souls as one that must give ac- 
count. I have alluded to your Pastor's labors, and to your 
appreciation of them ; and here let me raise the question, 
whether it would not be well for you to give him still more 
employment. This is indeed a delicate subject. It may 
seem strange that I, who do not appear to be worn down 
with toil, — certainly am not in the "lean and slippered 



69 



pantaloon," — should stir you up to increase your minis- 
ter's duties. It was stated, as you recollect, in his admira- 
ble sermon this morning, that he received all his salary on 
the appointed day, and that he had nothing to do about it, 
except to sign the receipt and spend the money, — four hun- 
dred dollars. Now the question in this connection is, 
whether it would not have a healthy influence if you 
should give him a little more to do ? But that question is 
left for you to decide. 

In such a gathering as this I realize the force of an old 
truth, more vividly than ever before. Reference is had to 
the power of a minister for good, when he is faithful to his 
trust. This point has been so well treated by one who has 
preceded me, that I will refer to it with brevity. Some one 
has said, that when a bright, sensible girl is married into a 
family, she will keep fools out of it for several generations. 
The same is true of a parish, when it forms a connection 
with an intelligent, clear-headed minister. Under his 
preaching, and his general influence in schools and in 
society, the young people will come forward with sound 
minds, and before his cultivated intellect nonsense and 
foolish isms will flee away as fog before the sun. A single 
illustration shall convey all I have to say on this point. 
Suppose, Sir, this house should be closed, the minister dis- 
missed, and the church disbanded. Let there be no evan- 
gelical preaching in the town. What would be the result ? 
In a generation, the moral and pious people would die or 
move away. Few good people would grow up here, and 
they would seek a home elsewhere. Vices of every kind 
and degree would become common. In the mean time the 
ignorant and depraved in neighboring towns would flow in 
hither, as if drawn by a sort of moral, or rather immoral, 
gravitation, until all religious, moral, and even decent peo- 
ple would avoid it as they would a pestilence. The agency 
that prevents such results, and produces those that are just 
opposite, is unsurpassed in usefulness. 



70 



I will add but another remark. We see, in such a scene 
as this, how a minister is linked into the affections of his 
people. He is with them in their most joyous, their sad- 
dest, and their holiest seasons. The orange-blossom and 
the waving willow are associated with him in the hearts of 
those whom wedded love has made happy, and of those who 
have been led by him to feel that God loveth whom he 
chasteneth. He is also enshrined in the hearts of those 
whom he has led to the Saviour and welcomed to the table 
of the Lord. Thus the tendrils of sacred affection are 
thrown around him, and when he is called up, many hearts 
follow him to the skies. It is my fervent wish and hope, 
that when, late hereafter, your loved and venerated Pastor 
shall return to Heaven, he may be blessed with the assur- 
ance that he will be followed, not only by those who are 
now pursuing the strait and narrow path, but by many 
others also, who shall yet be gathered into the fold of the 
Good Shepherd. 

The President announced as the next sentiment, — 

The young' Clergymen of New Hampshire: May they 
prove as efficient in their mission as their predecessors. 

Rev. W. L. Gaylord, of Fitzwilliam, was called 
upon to respond to this sentiment. 

ADDRESS OF REV. W. L. GAYLORD. 

Mr. Chairman : — The gentleman who preceded me has 
explained the principle upon which we who were not 
advertised to speak on this occasion are called out so 
satisfactorily, that nothing further remains to be said on 
that point. 

Perhaps, Sir, I am requested to respond to the sentiment 
which you have just read, for the reason that, in this assem- 



71 



bly, convened to honor, on the fortieth anniversary of his 
pastorate over this people, one of the oldest ministers in 
this State, I stand as the youngest ordained clergyman 
of this section of the State ; or it may be that while these 
venerable fathers, whom we delight to-day and always to 
honor, have told us of what they have done, and these 
brethren in the scenes and activities of midday life tell us 
of what they are doing, I am before you the representative 
of that class who are just entering and looking out upon 
the field before us, but who, having done but little as yet, 
have nothing to tell you about but our expectations and 
our faith in the future, with the inspiring example of these 
fathers and brethren before us. 

I count it, Sir, one of the highest privileges of my inter- 
course with these reverend and venerated brethren, and of 
my life, to be permitted to speak congratulatory words to 
them, and to this assembly to-day ; and as they have led us 
back, in memory, along the history of past generations, 
since they were young like those in whose name I address 
you, I have felt that my feet pressed hallowed ground, and 
that a holy Presence was making sacred and forever em- 
balming this hour and this scene in our hearts. 

As I came hither this morning, my mind attempted to 
grasp the fact, and to review in imagination the history of 
a pastorate of forty years' length. I attempted to measure 
the aggregate of ministerial labor that had been performed 
in that time ; the hopes that had been awakened, to be re- 
alized in present fruition, or only to be crushed in the bud. 
Joys came flitting by and lighted up the scene, and anon 
clouds of sorrow came, darkening the sky and shedding 
gloom around. It was a checkered scene that seemed to 
pass before me in that momentary and imaginary reviewal, 
but amid it all I thought I saw the angel Hope winging her 
way heavenward and beckoning the humble laborer in his 
Divine Master's vineyard to follow her, with his eye fixed 
on the Day-Star, while Faith walked ever by his side and 



72 



chanted to his often troubled, yet often entranced spirit, 
" The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." 

But it is impossible for me now in words, as it was then 
in thought, to present anything like an adequate view of 
the history of a pastoral relation extending over a period 
of so many years. 

Could our revered father in the ministry, whose festal 
day brings us together here, have had prophetic vision 
given him when, on this day forty years ago, he gave him- 
self to this church and people, to be to them a '* servant for 
Christ's sake"; could he have looked down along these 
many years that have passed, and seen and known all the 
toils, the sacrifices, the trials that awaited him, though 
the path should seem, even then, to be radiant with joys 
and blessings, I think that he would have been overwhelmed 
with the magnitude of the work before him, and would 
have felt that, unless the Eternal Presence should be with 
him, he could not go forward. 

The young clergy of New Hampshire desire to emulate 
the example of the fathers who have spoken to us to-day, 
that, like them, by " making full proof of our ministry," 
we may hereafter look back upon a well-fought conflict of 
faith, and forward to an imperishable " crown of right- 
eousness " in store for us. 

The reminiscences of the past — the whole history of 
other generations as it has been reviewed by honored lips 
to-day — shall incite us to renewed diligence and faithful- 
ness in our divine calling. 

The lives of these revered fathers are to us the golden 
links uniting us by their history with the past^ — and by 
the inspiration of their example, the support of their ap- 
proval, and the wisdom of their counsel, to an active and 
hopeful future, and hereafter to a glorious and triumphant 
revelation in the presence of the Anointed One, by whose 
commission we go forth to " preach the Gospel of peace 
and good-will to men." 



73 



In closing, permit me to offer to you, my beloved, and in 
a special sense, my honored father in the ministry, — to 
these otlier fathers and brethren, — to you, Mr. Chairman, 
— to this church and congregation, and to all assembled 
here to-day, — my most hearty congratulations upon this 
auspicious day and event, and to thank you, Sir, for the 
honor of being invited to speak on this occasion. 

The next sentiment was,-^ 

Our Guests from Abroad: Rindge extends a cordial wel- 
come to those who honor the town and the occasion by 
their presence. 

J. Russell Bradford, Esq., of Boston, was called 
upon to respond, and spoke as follows : — 

ADDRESS OF J. RUSSELL BRADFORD, ESQ. 

Mr. President : — It appears to me, notwithstanding the 
request with which I have been honored, that it is hardly 
right for me to occupy a moment's time upon this platform. 
This is a day when the first church in Rindge calls her 
children home ; when she says to those who, having been 
nourished and brought up in her bosom, but who in their 
youth or manhood, or womanhood, have gone forth to 
other scenes of joy or sorrow, " Return, come yet again 
and let us together hear and tell of former days, of our 
early recollections, pastimes, enjoyments, hopes, fears, 
trial's, and sorrows." But in all these, Sir, a stranger 
intermeddleth not ; therefore it is that I ought not to be 
heard to-day, for I came yesterday for the first time among 
you, an entire stranger, without even an acquaintance, 
excepting your honored Pastor and his family, who are, I 
am most happy to say, my friends. And yet, stranger 
though he be, no one can be with you to-day, participating 

10 



74 



in its enjoyments, and listening as we have done to the 
address of your Pastor as he has recited " all the way in 
which the Lord has led you," without rejoicing with you 
in your joy, and sympathizing with you, to some extent at 
least, in many of the tender and hallowed recollections of 
the past. Most sincerely do I rejoice with you that your 
beloved Pastor is still spared in health ; that he has been 
permitted to-day to tell of the mercies of the Lord, and to 
acknowledge the helping hand of God in all his ministry ; 
and that, still pressing forward toward the prize of his 
high calling, he loves to invite you, with him, to run with 
patience the race that is set before you, looking unto Jesus. 
And I also rejoice in the unanimity and Christian, brotherly 
love that has always prevailed among you and still con- 
tinues ; in your reverence for the good old truths, so pre- 
cious to the fathers, in which you are strengthened, settled, 
stablished ; in your love for your Pastor, who so well de- 
serves your love ; in the prosperity that attends you ; in 
the success that has followed the efforts here put forth for 
the spread of the Gospel ; and in the souls saved through 
the blessing of God upon the preaching of the Word. No 
one could have listened to the discourse of the morning 
without gratitude to God for His goodness and loving-kind- 
ness to you as a church and people, and none should ever 
forget the patient, faithful, self-denying labors of him who 
has, in season and out of season, for many years, ministered 
to you in holy things. It is an exceedingly rare thing, in 
these days especially, for one man to be united so long to 
one people, and it deserves to be commemorated as it is by 
you to-day. May it long be remembered as a season of joy 
and gladness, as a thanksgiving-day among you, and may 
the Lord continue to bless the dear Pastor and his people 
in all things. 

Mr. Bradford's remarks concluded the exercises of 
the afternoon, and the audience adjourned until 
evening. 



75 



EVENING. 

At an early hour the Town Hall was again filled, 
and the exercises commenced with the singing of 
Windham by the whole congregation, led by Hon. 
Marshall P. Wilder, who conducted the singing forty 
years ago that day at the ordination of Dr. Burn- 
ham. 

The first sentiment of the evening was then read 
by the President. 

The Clergy and the War: Always faithful to preach 
" Peace and good-will to men," thej do not forget to en- 
force the text, " They that take the sword shall perish by 
the sword." 

This was responded to by Rev. J. S. Batchelder, 
of Jaffrey, N. H. 

ADDRESS OF REV. J. S. BATCHELDER. 

Mr. President : — It seems that I am the first to have 
an ambush sprung upon me this evening. The first inti- 
mation I had of this special duty was in being asked by the 
chairman a few moments since, " if I believed in fighting ? " 
Yes, I do believe in fighting to preserve our government 
and free institutions from being trampled in the dust by 
rebellion and treason. I believe in fighting for the sake 

of PEACE. 

While we who are appointed ministers of the Gospel are 
to preach peace, if so be wicked men force upon us the 
alternative of war or the death of our dear-bought free- 
dom, then we cannot do otherwise than speak and pray 
for the sword. 



76 



For this occasion I would adopt Kossuth's translation 
of the angels' song, viz. : " Good-will on earth to men of 
peace." 

I think that declaration, "They that take the sword shall 
perish by the sword," means, — They that take the sword 
in an evil cause shall fall by the sword they have invoked. 
We must remember to modify the doctrines of peace taught 
by Christ by that declaration, — "I came not to send peace 
on earth, but a sword." 

That which is a peace to the true is a sword to the false. 

There is good reason why we ministers of New England 
should not shrink from this contest for American freedom. 
It comes from the blood that runs in our veins. We have 
an ancestry. Are we now to prove recreant to the old 
Puritan blood ? Shall we forget Hampden and Sidney 
and Vane, and Miles Standish and his stern little band, 
and all those God-fearing old heroes who stepped upon the 
Plymouth rock, in the face of that sharp wintry blast, 
when 

" The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
And the woods against a stormy sky 
Their giant branches tost " ? , 

Shall we hold back now, and make it true that the blood 
of our fathers was spilled on the ground in vain ? 

Some of our friends are in the habit of accusing the 
New England ministers of having brought these troubles 
on the country. Very well ; admit it for the sake of the 
argument. What a compliment they are paying us ! They 
would make us to be the ruling power of the nation. This 
is far more honor than it would be modest in us to claim. 
But if bravely to oppose a wrong is to enrage those who 
uphold the wrong, wc will accept the charge. If we have, 
by God's help, brought it to pass that this nation should 
not be bound hand and foot, and laid at the feet of the 
system of slavery, we glory in the accusation. 



77 



I do not believe that the ministers in general are in favor 
of any rash proclamation of emancipation ; but we mean 
to labor and pray that the power of slavery may be forever 
broken in America. Slavery is at the bottom of this war, 
and we must not blink the fact. 

Let me say of our reverend father here, that we know he 
is " equal to the rebellion." I was delighted the other day, 
when I had the honor of an exchange with him, to learn 
that, as brother Marvin says, he had " shaken his fist " in 
my pulpit. 

Perhaps he has not coveted the honor of " preaching 
politics" in past times. Well, " better late than never." 
"We now welcome him to the ranks of true political preach- 
ers ! At least he will preach politics as the old Quaker 
fought. He did not believe in war, but aiming a gun in 
the direction of a rebel, exclaimed as he pulled, — "Friend, 
thee unfortunately stands where I am just going to shoot ! " 
There is no doubt that Dr. Burnham's gun went off in the 
direction of the rebels. 

I cannot sit down, Mr. President, without an expression 
of my own personal feelings to our venerable father whom 
we to-day meet to honor. I shall always remember him 
as the one whose hands were laid on my head when I was 
consecrated to the ministry of Jesus. That consecrating 
prayer will ever live in my memory. There is one reason 
why I have loved him ever since I knew him, and that is, I 
felt that he hada/<ear^; and in looking for the reasons 
why for forty years he has maintained an unbroken pastor- 
ate, I find them not only in his ability and faithfulness to 
the truth, but in the fact that you have found in him a 
sympathizing friend. While he has been a minister he has 
not forgotten that he was a man. Age has whitened his 
head, but his heart is still young. If it be a sin to smile, he 
has many such sins to answer for in us all ! May he be re- 
sponsible for many more such sins while God shall spare 
him to dwell among us. 



78 



Rev. S. W. Brown, of Rindge, then responded to 
the following sentiment : — 

The Clergy of New England: From the landing of the 
Pilgrims to the present hour, faithful to their duties, their 
God, and their country ; always on the side of civil and 
religious liberty, and loving peace so well that they are 
ready to fight for it. 

ADDRESS OF REV. S. W. BROWN. 

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : — One 
reason that the powers of nature make so little impression 
upon the mind, is that many of them are noiseless in their 
working, though capable of upheaving continents and sub- 
merging islands by their operation. The rill that pene- 
trates the rocky fissures of the mountain-side is a feeble 
power. Yet when it has filled the cavity and congeals in 
winter, it suffices to lift the huge boulder from its bed. In 
the mountain showers and snows which percolate the upper 
strata until they reach the compact clay, and then flow 
away upon it, we have the source of those subterranean 
currents which shoot forth from the Artesian wells, some- 
times more than a hundred feet in height ; or burst forth 
like the Colorado or San Antonio, large streams at their 
very sources. 

The coral insect, which builds its house and tomb of lime 
beneath the sea, is a tiny thing. But, though so insignifi- 
cant, these zoophytes form the substructure of those circu- 
lar islands of the Pacific, large enough for a whole fleet to 
ride at anchor within their enclosed waters. 

Like these workings of nature are the labors of a faith- 
ful Christian minister. Quietly he performs his round of 
duties. But his labors are often unappreciated, because 
they have never failed. We anticipate his weekly in- 
structions and pastoral visits ; we expect him to share 



79 



our joy at the baptismal font and the bridal altar ; we 
know he will be present with his sympathy in our cham- 
ber of sickness, and bring consolations to the house of 
mourning. The commonness of these blessings renders us 
insensible of their greatness. It is well, therefore, to com- 
memorate in this public manner a day which reminds us 
of so great benefits. 

Delilah said to Samson, " Tell me wherein thy great 
strength lieth, or wherewith thou mightest be bound to af- 
flict thee." The discourse to-day has revealed the secret 
of our nation's power. It consists in the vitality of the 
Gospel truths as taught and exemplified by the clergy. As 
they have wrought in the preacher's own heart, they have 
made him the patron and friend of learning, as an ele- 
ment in human progress. Working in the national life, 
they have developed the individual, yet rendered him sub- 
missive to law ; making us the enigma of tyrants and the 
hope of the oppressed. 

The teachings of Puritan clergymen made despotism 
impossible in England in 1640. They were germinant 
with liberty in this country in 1776. They are not less po- 
tent to-day, in nerving our people to crush out this most 
wicked and gigantic rebellion. The traitors deemed us 
bound hand and foot, when they had rendered bankrupt 
our treasury, stolen our arms, and dispersed our fleets. 
They knew not the genius and energy of a loyal people. 
They had never considered that men loving freedom, and 
animated by religion, would be so ready to present their 
bodies as a bulwark to the foe ; that a people animated by 
Puritan ideas would be mightier than fleets and arma- 
ments. 

The Micronesian Islanders when offered a compass as 
they were leaving home for the Sandwich Islands, a voyage 
of twelve hundred miles, replied, "We do not want it ; we 
have the compass in our heads." So these ideas of God and 
of liberty, for which we may thank the clergy, are like a 



80 



compass in the head. They follow our people in their wan- 
derings, making the settlements of the wilderness but a 
miniature New England. Our citizens advance to battle, 
not fired by passion which will consume itself by its vio- 
lence, but animated by a settled purpose, which shines in 
their faces and strengthens their arms, which makes 
them patient in labors, fearless in conflict, and merciful in 
victory. Their foes see this resolution in their counte- 
nances, and it is no wonder that they cry. We may as well 
attempt to shake Bunker Hill Monument as them. 

Those Missourians who invaded Iowa, burned the church 
at Denmark, fired the academy, and declared they would 
hang Father Turner, the minister, if they could find him, 
showed a clear perception of the sinews of our strength. 
Before the rebels can hope to succeed, they must deprive us 
of the teachings and example of a Christian ministry ; and 
this they can never do. God has here planted the Church 
and placed the ministry, not only for the salvation of our 
own nation, but that he may use our land as a seed-plot, 
from which the plants of righteousness may be transferred, 
to bless other nations of the earth. 

Tlie discourse to-day has shown us how the clergy are 
ready to make sacrifices for the cause of religion and edu- 
cation. We followed the speaker, as he showed how the 
Lord had helped him forty years in the ministry, and 
thirty-five in labor for the cause of education, and I trust 
we all felt that there was evidence of self-denial. 

I do not think the time has come yet when the minister 
is required to fight for his principles, nor is it likely to 
while free men rush to the field by hundred thousands, to 
fight for the Union, the Constitution, and the Laws. While 
such a spirit animates the masses, liberty is safe. A High- 
lander of the New York 79th Regiment, who lost a limb at 
Bull Run, called upon Secretary Cameron, in New York 
City, and asked that he might be accepted to serve again 
upon crutches, as he was ready to part with his remaining 



81 



limb, for his country. And at Ball's BlnflT, the sick has- 
tened from the hospitals, that they might share with their 
comrades in the glory of the engagement. 

While such a spirit pervades our people, the clergy can 
be better employed even than in fighting for our liberties. 
When other defenders are wanting, I trust the clergy will 
be ready to fight. 

Samuel L. Wilder, Esq., of Rindge, was next called 
upon to respond to the following sentiment : — 

The First Congregational Church in Rindge : In more 
senses than one founded upon a rock. 

ADDRESS OF SAMUEL L. WILDER, ESQ. 

Mr. President: — It is with no little hesitation that I 
rise to speak. The infirmities necessarily attendant upon 
advanced age remind me that the scenes of public life are 
for those whose heads are not so gray as mine. Yet I may 
be pardoned for saying a few words on an occasion which I 
have enjoyed with my whole heart. 

In the Discourse to which we listened in the morning, 
we had given to us, and very properly too, all necessary 
statistics of the Society. But I would allude to the fact 
that it was the first organization of the kind in the State 
upon the voluntary principle. It was entered upon with 
much anxiety and with many misgivings on the part of the 
true friends of the cause in this place ; but, with the bless- 
ing of God, the enterprise was crowned with success, and 
to-day we realize the fruits of that effort, and celebrate its 
continuance in all its original purity of faith and doctrine. 
The permanency of the ministry in this town has been 
remarkable, especially when compared with that of the 
neighboring towns. In all of these the changes have been 
frequent since the settlement of our present Pastor ; and it 
11 



82 



is not too much to say, that our own present prosperity, 
and the comparative freedom from untoward circumstances 
in times past, is in no small degree owing to the uninter- 
rupted ministrations of the Gospel. 

My recollections of the Rev. Dr. Payson, the predecessor 
of the present Pastor, are distinct. I sat under his ministry 
for more than twenty-five years, and can testify to his faith- 
fulness and the deep interest he felt in the prosperity of his 
people, even to the last days of his life. I recall an inter- 
view had with him, not many months, and perhaps not 
many weeks, before his decease, and after he had become 
both physically and mentally disqualified to perform the 
duties of a Pastor. 

It is known to this audience that Dr. Payson's mind 
was seriously affected for some time previous to his death. 
While in this state, I was often invited to ride with him, 
and upon one of these occasions we went upon horseback.' 
After leaving his dooryard, some time elapsed without con- 
versation. At length he broke the silence by saying, that 
he felt a degree of clearness of mind that morning, which 
had of late been unusual to him ; and he wished to improve 
the opportunity to state his anxious desire that measures 
should be adopted, in some way, for continuing the minis- 
trations of the Gospel to the people of his charge. This 
remark, and others bearing upon the same subject, which 
seemed to weigh upon his mind, were uttered with such 
solemnity, and with such a tone of deep feeling and desire, 
that, to my mind, they had the force of a fervent prayer to 
which he could take no denial. Was it not " the effectual, 
fervent prayer of the righteous man which availeth much"? 

These desires have been realized, in that the ordinances 
of religion have been continued without interruption to the 
present hour ; and from time to time we have experienced 
refreshings from God's presence, thus evincing that the 
Church in this place does indeed rest upon that sure foun- 
dation of which Jesus Christ himself is the chief corner- 



83 



stone, elect and precious. And will not our friends from 
abroad, present on this occasion, unite with us in invoking 
the blessing of God upon this Society, and in praying 
for the perpetuity of our religious institutions to the latest 
posterity ? 

I would earnestly exhort our own people to value more 
highly the blessings with which we are favored, not only 
for our individual good, but for the best welfare of the com- 
munity in which we dwell. No permanent good can be 
secured without some sacrifice. We must count the cost, 
the labor to be expended, the sacrifices to be made. We 
should consider the shortness of life, and the rewards re- 
sulting from a life of obedience to the will of God, 

Especially would I urge parents to train up their children 
" in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," so that when 
we fail, others may come forward to fill our places and give 
support to the ordinances of religion. 

Rev. Z. S. Barstow, D. D., followed Mr. Wilder 
with the following remarks : — 

I wish to testify. Sir, to the correctness of what Mr. 
Wilder has said in regard to Dr. Payson's great regard to 
the welfare of his people ; and also to s.ay that when I com- 
menced my pastorate, I felt what a boon it was to be able 
to look to such a man for counsel, to receive him into my 
family, to hear his chastened wit and his profound theo- 
logical remarks and admonitions. And if it would not be 
thought amiss, I would like here to say, that after the good 
Doctor's death, when spending a Sabbath in Riudge, I took 
from my pocket a copy of the Christian Spectator^ then 
published at New Haven, and read the short obituary of 
Dr. Payson to his venerable widow. Putting her trumpet 
to her ear, she listened with marked attention, and occa- 
sionally suffusing her face with tears, while I read it. At 
the close, she said with much emphasis : " I wonder how 
they could know so much of my dear husband ! " 



84 



The speaker did riot attempt to enlighten her. Nor did 
he ever tell who wrote that obituary, till this occasion ! 

And, Sir, now I am up I wish to testify a word in regard 
to my brother, whose fortieth anniversary we now celebrate, 
I have been with him on many occasions and in seasons of 
great trial, and mingled my tears with him and his family 
in their afflictions, when death came up into their windows, 
and tore away those promising and beloved daughters ! 
And I wish to testify that he has always shown a commend- 
able, lovely, and Christian spirit. 

Rev. W. L. Gaylord, of Fitzwilliam, said : — 

Our reverend Pastor has spoken of his obligations, dur- 
ing his long pastorate, to those who have conducted the 
singing in the house of public worship. We are happy 
to acknowledge to-day our gratitude to the lady (Miss 
Julia E. Houston, of Boston) whose beautiful music has 
added so much to the interest of the present occasion. 
We offer, therefore, the following sentiment : — 

The sweet Singer from the Bay State : We shall long 
remember the thrilling tones of her voice, as we have heard 
them in the sacred and patriotic songs which she has sung 
to-day. May the pleasure which she has contributed to 
this festal occasion be returned to her in tenfold measure. 

Miss Houston responded to this sentiment with 
a song. 

Rev. Mr. Copp, pastor of the Methodist Church 
in Rindge, being called upon by the President, spoke 
.as follows. 

ADDRESS OF REV. MR. COPP. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — What kind of a man have 
you here for a President ? Since he this morning informed 
me that he should call me out on this occasion, I have re- 



85 



peatedly entreated him not to do so ; but all my entreaties 
have been in vain, and I am forced to come to the painful 
conclusion that he is a man of but little mercy. Possibly 
a further acquaintance may lead me to a diifcrent conclu- 
sion. I never did, Sir, like speech-making ; and this is not 
the worst of it, I fear I never shall. There arc individuals 
— quite likely they are present — who take a supreme de- 
light in displaying their eloquence on all possible occasions, 
and would at any time go without a good dinner rather 
than lose the privilege of making a speech. But, unfortu- 
nately for myself perhaps, I do not belong to this class, and 
wovild go without half a dozen good dinners rather than be 
called upon for a speech. The Indians say, " Old men for 
counsel and young men for war " ; and if I mistake not, 
my mother used to say to me, when I was a little boy and 
became too talkative in the presence of older people, " that 
little folks should be seen and not heard." Now I am of 
this opinion to-night, and consequently my words shall be 
few. 

This is the first time I have ever had an opportunity 
of attending a celebration of this kind, and, indeed, such 
celebrations are in these days very rare ; for, whether 
the change is for the better or worse, ministers of all de- 
nominations are now-a-days v^ry migratory in their habits. 
Where one pastor remains over a flock forty or even twenty 
years, probably ten do not remain even five years. But, 
Sir, this occasion has been to me, and doubtless to all pres- 
ent, one of interest. I was pleased with the discourse to 
which we listened this morning, and which was prepared, 
no doubt, at the expense of much time and labor. 

The addresses, also, to which we listened this afternoon 
were excellent ; and. Sir, permit me to say further, that the 
refreshments so bountifully provided by the ladies for this 
occasion were equally excellent. I 'think it may safely be 
said that in the furnishing of a table the good ladies of 
Rindge are not to be surpassed. I said I was pleased with 



86 



the discourse this morning. I was not only pleased, but I 
felt that I could heartily indorse what was said concerning 
the general good character of the people of this town. I 
am, to be sure, a comparative stranger among this people, 
yet I have been here long enough to learn that there are 
many warm and liberal hearts in Rindge. As I have visited 
among the people I have sometimes, when it has been con- 
venient, called upon families belonging to Dr. Burnham's 
congregation ; and the warm sliake of the hand and the 
smiling faces with which I have everywhere been met, have 
been as sunshine in my pathway. The union of feeling 
which exists between the two Societies in this place has 
done very much toward making the few months I have 
spent here pleasant months both to me and mine. The 
kindness and sympathy manifested in my behalf, by the 
people of Dr. Burnham's congregation as well as by my 
own people, during the recent severe sickness in my family, 
I shall not soon forget. 

The aged Pastor whom we have this day assembled to 
honor, by the kindness and respect he has invariable shown 
me, has also won my esteem. Indeed, what my predecessor 
said to me concerning him, I can to-night say, " He has been 
to me as a father." May Heaven bless him and his, and 
may he for ten years to come be able to go in and out be- 
fore his people to break to them the bread of life, so that 
on the fourteenth of November, 1871, he may in this place 
be honored with a semi-centennial celebration. 

The follow^ing original Hymn, written by W. F. 
Somerby, Esq., was then read. 

HYMN. 

" Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery." 

Gently sweep the tuneful lyre ; 

Let each heart be full of praise ; 
Union of our souls inspire ! 

Each with love your voices raise. 



87 

Harps of hallowed numbers bring, 
Chiming with the timbrel's strain ; 

God of Love, to thee we sing, 
Thus renew our love again. 

Shepherd of this social fold, 

Twoscore years thy prayer hath been, 
That the love which is untold, 

Should redeem us all from sin ; 

That the life of each should be 

Pure as the example set 
By our Lord of Calvary, 

Healer of Genesaret. 

Mem'rj", with its spirit chain. 
Links us to companions dear, 

Who, too pure for earth's domain, 

Passed to heaven's more genial sphere. 

Little tufts of faded earth 
Mark the spots their caskets hold. 

But their spirits' second birth 
Blooms like roses o'er the mould. 

As the sun illumes each day, 
As the stars adorn the night, 

Purer shine, O genial ray 
Of a union still more bright ! 

Met as one, in mind and heart, 
Welcome at our festive shrine ; 

Strike the timbrel ere we part, 
To the praise of All Divine ! 

While the nation wars for right, 

And her battle bugles ring, 
And our star-filled emblem bright, 

Waves for freedom while we sing ; 

Peaceful with our pastor raise 

Song and prayer ; our land shall be 

Through all time the theme of praise, — 
Home of peace and liberty ! 



88 

Letters were then read from various gentlemen 
who were unable to be present, after which the 
President called upon Mr. Samuel Burnham, of Bos- 
ton, son of the Pastor, to address the meeting. 

ADDRESS OF MR. SAMUEL BURNHAM. 

Me. Peesident : — Remarks from me seem superfluous, 
after the many excellent addresses to which we have lis- 
tened during the day and evening ; and following in the 
wake of the large vessels which have ploughed their way 
over this sea of talk, my little canoe is in danger of 
swamping. 

The gentleman who immediately preceded me (Rev. Mr. 
Copp) referred to an adage concerning " little folks," 
which applies with equal force to me, or, as some one has 
given it in a rhyme which occurs to me at the instant : — 

" One word of self, if you will please excuse, 
There was a phrase my mother oft did use. 
The pith of which, if not the very word. 
Was, ' Little folks be seen, but seldom heard ! ' 
Now, of the many things I failed to do, 
One most important was, I never grew 
To manly stature, and mamma's old adage 
Holds just as true as when I, at that bad age, 
Could never learn fully to realize 
That many persons pass for wondrous wise, 
As mighty men, and men of great ability. 
By merely bridling tongues from volubility." 

Or still again, a moral can be drawn from Holmes's 
couplet : — . 

" Long metre answers for a common song, 
Though common metre does not. answer long." 

But, Sir, as in times past, I have never declined speak- 
ing in and for my native town, or, as a clergyman of this 



89 



vicinity once said, " in the place of my former nativity ^^^ 
so now I gladly accept your invitation, so far as to say 
that I never was so proud of old Rindge as to-day. And 
this I say with the warmest impiilses of my lieart. Proud 
of my native town, of its people, of its Pastor (even though 
he is my father), of the fame of those who have gone out 
from us, of the intelligence, enterprise, and thrift of those 
who remain, of the exercises of to-day, and of the honor- 
able record of the past to which we have listened ; — proud 
of all these, and of a thousand other things which come 
welling up in the soul as the long line of years tells its 
tale of the past. I rejoice to stand before a Rindge audi- 
ence, and tell them, as a son of the town, that my affec- 
tion for the " old homestead " was never so strong as to- 
day ; that to-day new ties of love have been formed, and 
the old ones all strengthened. 

From my earliest recollections, even from the time when 
I was smaller than now, (and I can remember that " day 
of small things ! ") I have loved my native town. Thus 
taught in my childhood, and with nothing but pleasant 
associations connected with all the people, with many ties 
to bind my heart here, absence diminishes not my love, 
and, like a tired bird, I often am glad to return to the old 
nest for shelter and repose. Your hills and valleys, rocks 
and streams, the beautiful ponds that make your landscape 
so charming, the noble mountains on every side, I know 
them all, and year by year as I return, they seem to pos- 
sess new attractions. From the " Prophet's Chamber," in 
the old Payson mansion, full many an hour have I gazed 
on that landscape of unsurpassed beauty which stretches 
off to the distant horizon ; familiar indeed to you, but 
which I claim to love with a deeper love, as I can see it 
only at long intervals. Sitting in that ancient chair in 
which Dr. Payson once wrote his sermons, and in the very 
room wherg, surrounded by the minds of the great dead, 
he studied and prayed, I have looked out into the far 

12 



90 



North, away, away into the distance, where the faint out- 
line of the mountain ranges seemed blending into the pale 
blue of that far-off sky, until the eye grew dim with seeing, 
and the soul had more than its fulness of beauty. How 
that landscape stretches on and away with long ranges of 
billowy hills, and intervening valleys, the streams glisten- 
ing like silvery threads, the white villages smiling in the 
sunlight, the lakes sleeping quietly in the shadows of the 
dark forests ; on and on stretches the glorious scene, and 
grander and grander rise heavenward the blue mountains, 
until, scores of miles away, Kearsarge, and a long range 
of pale blue hills, form as if a boundary-line between the 
present and the future. And Monadnock, noble in its 
isolated grandeur, rises skyward, our pride and our ad- 
miration ; and from whose summit, 

" The beauty and the majesty of earth, 
Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget 
The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st, 
The haunts of men below thee, and around 
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart 
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world 
To which thou art translated, and partake 
The enlargement of thy vision." 

And from the eminence just west of us, what a scene of 
beauty is spread out, — a landscape famous through all the 
region ! 

" The hills, 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods, — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green " ; 

the lake that rests at the foot of Monadnock ; the villages 
that sit on the sunny slopes, — all unite to complete this 
picture, the loveliest of all ! Yes, all these I know, all 
these I love ! 



91 



But I was not to make an address. We who follow the 
pen, — we who endeavor with a modicum of brains to se- 
cure the requisite amount of " bread and butter," — we 
" literary men," — are not speech-makers. " We literary 
men," did I say ? It is told of a young unmarried clergy- 
man in the vicinity of Boston, that " once on a time " he 
gave an address before a Maternal Association, and, becom- 
ing warmed with his subject, he astonished his hearers by 
commencing an impassioned sentence with, " We who are 
mothers " .' Perhaps my lapsus linguce is not quite so in- 
appropriate ; yet those who spend their time, pen in hand, 
endeavoring to catch and " fix " stray ideas, whether " lit- 
erary men " or not, are out of their proper sphere when 
upon the platform. " We " who are acquainted with such 
matters feel the awkwardness of the position, and can pick 
some grains of comfort from an anecdote told of a New 
Hampshire clergyman of " ye olden time." 

It is well known to this audience, and especially to the 
clergymen upon this platform, that, many years ago, all 
Southern New Hampshire was kept on a broad grin by the 
jokes, whims, and oddities of a few celebrated clerical wits. 
Anecdotes of Ainsworth, of Sprague, (the identical man 
who did, in fact, pull his beans and re-set them, because he 
supposed they were coming up the wrong way !) of Miles, 
of Payson, and others, will never die. Some one behind 
me adds the name of Sabin. Thanks for the suggestion, as 
he is one whom I remember. Recollections of my earliest 
childhood bring to mind his bended head, and his long 
brown surtout ; and I never hear his name without recall- 
ing a little incident characteristic of the man, and in relat- 
ing it I trust I shall not lose sight of the anecdote I started 
upon some sentences back. 

It was in the old church ; and Mr. Sabin, with whom 
father had " exchanged " that Sabbath, had been reading a 
hymn, and it was a very long one. After reading it 
through, he looked calmly at it some time, and then, 



92 



slowly raising his head, looked at the choir as calmly ; 
again he looked at the hymn, and again to the choir, and 
remarked, " Well, I guess you may sing the whole of it ; 
you had rather sing than hear the old man preach " / 

But to the other incident, whose practical and personal 
application, like to that of a sermon, comes at the close, or 
just after " Finally." 

It is told of one of these ministers, that, before studying 
for the clerical profession, he had given some attention to 
medicine ; and he lost no opportunity for displaying his 
medical knowledge, thus driving a double team of theology 
and medicine whenever occasion offered. One Sabbath, a 
request for prayers for a sick woman was sent to the pulpit, 
as was customary at that time, and is now in many country 
places. This was an opportunity for displaying his medical 
knowledge not to be lost sight of, and his request was 
worded after this style : " We pray thee, Lord, that this 
woman, thy servant, may recover, if it be thy will, although 
we who are acquainted with medical matters know that she 
cannot " .' 

Mr. President, " we who are acquainted with medical 
matters," or, in this instance, " we literary men," feel that 
we must be known by the pen rather than the tongue, — 
that platform-speaking is not our vocation. It was not my 
intention to make an address, — only to assure you. Sir, 
and all present, of the great enjoyment I have taken in all 
the exercises of the day ; of the great pleasure it gives me 
to be here, and to be one of your number ; and of my 
heartiest wishes for the continued happiness and prosperity 
of all gathered within these walls. 

The President then announced the following sen- 
timent : — 

We honor the good tvomen of olden time, and rejoice 
that they have worthy successors in their daughters. 

Rev. A. P. Marvin, of Winchendon, responded. 



ADDRESS OF REV. A. P. MARVIN. 

Mr. President : — It clearly belongs to another gentle- 
man to respond to this sentiment, rather than to me. Has 
he not told us this afternoon how devotional he used to be 
in his early days in church — on the Sabbath — during 
prayer-time, especially when he ventured to look out of 
one eye at the prettiest girl in the meeting-house ? But as 
the duty has been assigned to me I will say a few words, 
since the sentiment is so true and so well-deserved. 

We honor the good women of the " olden time," — of 
Puritan and Revolutionary days. Dr. Beecher once said, 
that if he were invited to give an oration on the 4th of 
July, he should celebrate the virtues of the " foremothers," 
instead of the forefathers. The latter, he said, had monop- 
olized all the glory of our heroic age, although their moth- 
ers, wives, and daughters had endured quite as much, and 
evinced at least equal piety and heroism, in subduing the 
wilderness, and securing our national independence. This 
is unquestionably true ; for though woman is not sum- 
moned into the field, nor exposed to the hardships of the 
camp and the mortal strife of the field of battle, yet she 
is called to self-denial, to sorrow, to anxiety, to the long 
agony of bereavement, when she learns that the idols of 
her heart will never return to behold home and friends and 
native land again. Our mothers deserve honor, and they 
shall receive the tribute of grateful admiration from our 
hearts. 

But, Sir, it is our double felicity to have worthy succes- 
sors to them in their daughters. Passing events, which 
call into exercise not only the patriotism of the men, but 
the self-denial of the women, give them an opportunity to 
show their devotion to their country and their love of 
freedom ; and most nobly liave they responded to the call. 
Some appear to be surprised at this, as if they supposed all 
the heroic and noble in woman had died out in a former 



94 



generation. These persons, unlike your respected minis- 
ter, wlio keeps abreast of the times, and sees good in the 
present as well as in the past, resemble the Roman poet's 
laudatores temporis acti, and always tell us that we 
have degenerated from our ancestors. Nothing is so good 
now as when they were young. Even the girls are not so 
pretty as in the days of "their boyhood. [Here some one 
said, "That is so."] Well, Mr. President, as to that, I 
am inclined to think that the girls never were so pretty as 
about sixteen or eighteen years ago ; though those now 
coming forward are promising. But as I was saying. Sir, 
this war gives an occasion for the women of our land to 
vindicate their claims to historic renown, and they are not 
found wanting. No one who is familiar with the moving 
forces of society ever doubted this. It is true, we have 
some " Miss Flora McFlimseys," who, tottering along un- 
der a load of silks, satins, furs, and jewelry, can only 
sigh out, " Nothing to wear" ; but these pampered butter- 
flies of fashion are comparatively few. Our countrywomen 
are making manifest their blood, their training, their spirit. 
They are not called into the " imminent deadly breach " ; 
they are not called to endure such hardships as were com- 
mon in the Revolution, because the land, is full of riches. 
Yet they are busy in all our towns, villages, and cities, 
working for the benefit of the soldiers. And what is more, 
they are ready to part with husband, brother, son, and 
friend, when they go forth to the field of blood. Even the 
delicate maiden will bind the sword on the ruddy youth, 
who is so dear to her that she can hardly bear to have him 
out of her sight, and bid him " God-speed " to the war. 
This is a most surprising spectacle. A whole people have 
sprung to arms, as one man, and all are moving as under 
one impulse. Men, women, and children are swayed by 
one feeling ; and I am amazed at this grand uprising, 
which has no parallel in all history. It seems as if our 
people were moved by the inspiration of the Almighty. 



95 



And I verily believe this is His contest, and that He is 
sending forth our men in such numbers for the purpose of 
settling forever for this country and for the people of all 
countries the question of free government. In this wicked 
revolt, which is a war of anarchy against authority, of re- 
bellion against good government, of slavery against free- 
dom, of despotism against civil liberty, and of a religion of 
caste and prejudice against the religion of Jesus Christ, — 
the Lord of hosts, I cannot doubt, is on our side. And in 
this awful struggle we have the support of the daughters, 
as our fathers were cheered and animated by the mothers 
in the " brave days of old." 

There are, however, other labors and other scenes besides 
those connected with war, which call out the sympathy and 
the active support of woman. These spheres of activity 
demand quite as much of self-denial, of piety, and of endur- 
ance as those which are more celebrated in history. Every 
minister knows to what I refer, and therefore I am speak- 
ing of what is pertinent to this occasion. Very much of 
the power of the ministry and of the Church for good de- 
pends upon the devotedness of the female members. Even 
the pecuniary support is supplied by them to a considerable 
extent. I know it is sometimes said, that it is of no use to 
ask women to give, for it all comes out of the husband's 
pocket. But how does it get into his pocket ? Suppose he 
should keep house for himself ; that he should be destitute 
of the steadying influence of home, — how much would 
he have to give ? But this is not the main point. The 
moral and religious influence of woman in society is in- 
dispensable. She brings forward the young, and inclines 
them, with the blessing of God, to walk in the way of life. 
She encourages the minister in times of darkness, when the 
" ways of Zion mourn because so few come to her solemn 
feasts." It is by her prayers that blessings are called down 
from heaven upon his soul. No man can come before an 
audience week after week, and preach unwelcome truths, 



96 



unless he is projected forward by some force from without. 
It is easy to speak before a lyceum, where all have come to 
be pleased. It is pleasant to address a crowd of politi- 
cal sympathizers, where every sentence will be applauded. 
But it is entirely different in preaching the plain, hum- 
bling doctrines of the Gospel to those who are unwilling to 
be told of their guilt and danger. What can induce a man 
to be faithful in the utterance of such truth ? Nothing but 
the influence of the Holy Spirit. And this influence comes 
in answer to prayer. And it is by prayer that the sisters 
of the Church do so much to uphold the minister's hands 
and strengthen his heart. 

And here it will not be out of place to say, that there is 
another class of women who do much to promote the use- 
fulness of ministers, as well as to secure the permanency 
of their settlement ; I refer, of course, to the wives of the 
clergy. One who is intelligent, prudent, pious, free from 
worldly ambition and the love of change, and who besides 
knows how to make home pleasant, does much not only to 
keep a man in the same place, but to keep him alive, and 
to make him useful while he does live. In this regard, I 
believe that the ministry have been generally fortunate ; or 
rather, as a prudent wife is from the Lord, I ought rather 
to say that they have been the favorites of Heaven. And 
while my acquaintance with the wives of the younger clergy 
in this vicinity would prompt me to say, " Many daughters 
have done virtuously," I am quite sure they would all jus- 
tify me in turning to the respected wife of your honored 
guest to-day, and in view of her larger experience in all 
the sorrows and joys of home, by which the blossoms of 
youth have been ripened into the fruits of mature Chris- 
tian womanhood, and saying, " But thou excellest them 
all." This occasion unseals my lips, and I am glad of the 
opportunity to utter what else might remain unspoken. 
For ever since my first meeting with her, some seventeen 
years since, when she gave me an account of the departure 



97 



of those sainted daughters, — one of whom went before as 
a happy pioneer, and then seemed to return and become 
visible, through the parted veil which divides eternity from 
time, to her who was ready to follow, — who had for so 
many years filled the parsonage with gladness, and caused 
the hearts of parents to dance with joy ; ever since then, I 
repeat, all my thoughts of her have been redolent of that 
first interview. That bereavement was a great grief, but 
it was attended with a sacred joy, and left its permanent 
stamp on the soul. And this reminds me of the power of 
mothers to lead their children to the Saviour, and so to 
heaven. In a recent popular and much admired work, an 
unhappy mother is made to exclaim : " 0, my wedding- 
day ! Why did they rejoice ? Brides should wear mourn- 
ing ; the bells should toll for every wedding ; every new 
family is built over this awful pit of despair, and only one 
in a thousand escapes." This is all wrong. Every bride 
should rejoice. Let the bells ring a merry peal, for Christ 
has provided for the salvation of every child, if the mother 
will give them up to him, and train them for his service. 
He will take them in his arms and bless them. And so 
every Christian mother, whether wife or widow, whether 
married or alone, like the good old Christiana of the Pil- 
grim, can take all her flock with her up the strait but 
shining way that leads to heaven. 

The next sentiment was : 

The present delightful occasion : Fraught with deep in- 
terest, as furnishing opportunity for friendly reunion, — too 
pure and elevating in its influence to find full expression 
in the language of earth, — may it be but a foretaste of the 
blessed reunion and fellowship of kindred spirits above, 
whose triumphant and holy joys shall find perfect expres- 
sion in the dialect of heaven. 

J. Russell Bradford, Esq., of Boston, was called 
upon to respond. 

13 



98 



ADDRESS OF J. R. BRADFORD, ESQ. 

Permit me, Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen, to 
say a few words in response to the sentiment just read. 
Surely that sentiment merits a great deal of thought, 
although at tliis hour but very little of our time can be 
given to it. The question must, it seems to me, have often 
arisen in our minds to-day, Why are we so happy here ? 
"Why is this a day of such pure and unalloyed enjoyment, 
notwithstanding the thoughts of sadness that must have 
occasionally crossed the hearts of nearly all present ? Why 
do we weep when others weep, while we rejoice with ex- 
ceeding joy and feel that our hearts are full of sympathetic 
emotion and fraternal love ? Our beloved friend, your 
Pastor, struck the key-note this morning in leading us to 
feel that, " Hitherto hath the Lord helped us," and not 
only hitherto, but now it is the Lord, — the Lord, His good- 
ness. His love, that visits us to day, and causeth us to sit 
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In what other 
assemblage of people can there be found such perfect satis- 
faction, not only at the time, but when afterwards we look 
back upon it, as when Christians meet together to recount 
" the mercies of God in all the way in which he has led 
them," or " to pray, and praise, and to hear his word " ? In 
such meetings, and in such alone, where God is honored,- 
adored, acknowledged as all in all, and loved, though so 
imperfectly, is there any approach to the perfect happiness 
of heaven. And if the communion of saints here on earth, 
where so much of sin mingles with our best service, gives 
us such peaceful joy that sometimes we can almost say, 
" Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace," 
what must the bliss of heaven be ? What is it to meet 
there with all the ransomed of the Lord, in the immediate 
presence of Him who sitteth upon the throne, beholding all 
its glories, and, having cast our crowns at his feet and join- 
ing in the everlasting anthem of " Worthy is the Lamb," 



99 



we sit down to go no more out forever, telling each other 
of the loving-kindness of God, as manifested to our once 
lost, but ransomed souls ? Let us, then, remembering all 
the happiness of this day, cultivate more and more the 
social element of our faith, that all our earthly enjoyments 
may be increased, while we look away in joyful anticipation 
and hope to that assembling of the friends of Christ that 
shall continue forever. The Gospel, glad tidings of great 
joy, is to be preached to all nations ; because it tells to a 
sinful world of happiness in Christ Jesus, who came to 
save all who will believe in him ; and, thanks be to God ! it is 
not these honored ministers alone who are privileged to go 
forth and tell the joyful message, but all of us, every one 
here is invited, — nay, commanded, to go into all the world 
and preach the Gospel, and this in order that every one 
may be an instrument in the hand of God in leading souls 
to heaven. Praising him for the promise, " Lo, I am with 
you always, even unto the end of the world," let us go 
forward, earnestly desiring to do something more for our 
Lord. 

But, Mr. President, I cannot dwell longer upon this 
theme, pleasant though it be. I have now a duty to per- 
form, and a very pleasant one. We who are your guests 
to-day have found it very good to be here. We have had 
our heart's desire of enjoyment, and we would not leave 
you without giving our tribute of thanks to those who 
have so effectually ministered to this pleasure. In obedi- 
ence to the suggestion of others, as well as to the dictate 
of my own heart, I desire, in behalf of your visitors, to 
thank the members of this Church and Society most heart- 
ily. For the open door of your dwellings, the cordial 
grasp of the hand, the hearty " Glad to see you ! " and the 
privileges of bowing at your family altars, which has made 
us feel at home while partaking of the bountiful hospitality 
of your homes, we thank you. We cannot in words thank 
the dear Pastor of this flock for his address of the morn- 



100 



ing ; but, often as we think of that acknowledgment of the 
mercies of God, often as we call to mind that Scripture, 
" Hitherto hath the Lord helped us," so often will our 
hearts thank him for his bright and patient example of 
faithful labor as an ambassador for Christ in the minis- 
try of the Gospel. To those who with their melodious 
voices led us in the service of song, and with whom we 
were permitted to unite in praise, making melody in our 
hearts, we also offer our thanks. And, not only to these, 
for, Mr. President, although in an assemblage of this kind, 
people very often forget their obligation to those who have 
borne the burden and heat of the day of preparation, we 
cannot forget them, for a large share of our enjoyment 
is the result of the able, judicious, and orderly manner 
in which they have prepared and brought before us the 
exercises and festivities of this occasion. Therefore, to 
you. Sir, and to all who have been associated with you in 
the preliminary arrangements, so various, and so promptly 
and happily performed, are our thanks most justly due, 
and we heartily offer them. 

And once more. To the ladies. What can we ever do 
without them ? From the hour of our birth to that of our 
death, we are continually dependent upon their kind offices. 
I was most happy to hear, and do cordially unite in all that 
has just been so fitly spoken of woman ; and let me add 
one word to it. No man with an honest heart ever speaks 
lightly or sneeringly of woman. To-day the handiwork of 
the ladies has been most clearly seen, being discerned by 
the things they have made, and for the generous collation 
so bountifully provided, so tastefully arranged and set be- 
fore us, the product and the proof of their skill and energy, 
we do most sincerely offer our service of thanks. 

The President then announced as the last senti- 
ment : — 

Our Reverend Pastor : In the true succession of the 



101 

prophets, forty years the leader of God's chosen people. 
Far distant be the day when all Israel shall be gathered 
together to mourn for him. 

Rev. A. W. Burnham, D. D., the Pastor, responded 
to this sentiment in the following words. 

ADDKESS OF KEY. A. W. BURNHAM, D. D. 

Mr. Chairman: — I supposed that I had fulfilled my 
part in the public exercises of this day, but I am now in- 
formed that the proprieties of the occasion demand some 
remarks from me. 

But, in the circumstances, I can only express my hearty 
thanks, first, to my own beloved people, for their appoint- 
ment of this public observance of the fortieth anniversary 
of my ministry among them. 

Contrary to some anxieties that were felt, the effort has 
been perfectly successful ; and I knew the people too well 
to allow myself to entertain any apprehension of a failure. 

I appreciate the liberality, the admirable order, the good 
taste, so manifest in the general arrangements, and the 
care and hard ivork to which the committees and others 
have necessarily but cheerfully submitted in making all the 
provisions for the day and. the evening. 

Next, in behalf of the people and for myself, I tender to 
my brethren in the ministry, and to other visitors from 
abroad, our grateful acknowledgments for their presence, 
and the essential aid they have rendered to the interest and 
enjoyments of this delightful occasion. 

But I must, in all honesty, disclaim all title to the unex- 
pected commendations expressed in my behalf by my breth- 
ren, and others, to whose remarks we have listened with so 
much satisfaction. 

While I am encouraged by this expression of their ap- 
proval, yet- I must and do, here and now, repeat my 



102 



acknowledgment of entire indebtedness to " help obtained 
of God " ; and to Him alone is due the glory, now and 
forever. Amen. 

The exercises of the evening were closed by the 
singing of America by the audience, and the Bene- 
diction by the Pastor. 



